Some days, it’s best just to roll with the Sanuk and give up on any aspirations of diligently marking grammar essays. Today appears to be one of those days.
The school secretary is dancing around in the trendy ‘dinosaur foot shoes,’ and a proportion of the foreign teachers are discussing purchasing them to wear to teach, followed by wearing them out to the bar on Friday after school. Oh, the power of silly trends and crowds.
Speaking of silly trends and crowds, planking.
(I believe all of you in North America are scratching your heads. Am I correct? No really I want to know where this has spread, leave me a comment.)
What on earth is it you ask? Allow me to outsource my explanation:
The Australian hub bub. And in Thailand, warning teens. Remembering last year’s protests: Article. Photo.
For those of you that won’t click through those links, planking is: laying prostrate, arms and legs straight against ones body in a creative or odd location, having ones picture taken and uploading it to social media.
Which is all well and good stupid teenage fun until an Australian guy falls off a building and dies, or people lay around the sidewalk to commemorate last year’s red shirt protests, which IMHO is just an invitation to further trouble this year as the July 3 election day looms. Sure, it’s a form of peaceful protest. Personally, I’m not gonna protest anything lying down, but they didn’t ask me.
Also, call me old and no fun for being so critical. I don’t really care about this charge any more. Oh don’t be so serious, na. Well, I’ll pick and choose my serious vs my sanuk thank you very much.
On the note of age, not that this is news: I have realized I’m going to be told I look like a baby every day of my life until I am 60. Frequently multiple times a day. I wonder if I’ll ever have to convince another Immigration bureau the age listed on my passport is valid.
But back to the distractions and sanuk of the office, where the Irishman is teaching the Thai secretary a Jersey accent, we’re all negotiating who gets to use the available internet jacks as there are not enough to go around, and I am incrementally increasing the volume of the Super Junior song I am currently listening to on youtube to polish this draft off before another round of ninth grade Writing class.
Showing posts with label sanuk. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sanuk. Show all posts
Monday, June 20, 2011
Saturday, April 23, 2011
Cell Phones
With the recent exodus of my cell phone on Khao Sarn Rd, I decided it might be time to address the Thai attitude towards cellular communication.
As previously mentioned, cell phone usage at my school drives me absolutely nuts. Not the least of which because I have a rather personal disdain for the things to begin with and there is absolutely no rule against them at school.
I’ve come to realize it’s not just school. I read on another expat’s blog that if you see a Thai girl without a cell phone, run because there is something wrong with her. And while I first viewed this assessment as harsh, it’s become apparent that taking out exceptions for extreme poverty (and even then, phones are much more affordable here), that pretty much every Thai person has a cell phone. And I mean everyone – the monks have cell phones. What on Earth a monk needs a cell phone for, I don’t know, but then again I have yet to figure them out, and some of the ones in Bangkok are just in it for the free ride.
Boundaries of appropriate times and frequency with which to call also seem to be open to interpretation, though I realize that is an individual thing; I’ve run into it in a variety of contexts. Can I call you every day? No. Blank stare. Can I call you every day? NO. Blank stare. Lost in Translation, even with translation.
I went to the gym today for the first time since before Songkran and as usual I noticed the high volume of people texting while on the treadmill, with eyes glued to their iPhone while lifting weights with their quadriceps, or merely sitting on various pieces of equipment, eyes glued to their phone. I think their thumbs are getting a better workout than the rest of them.
I’ve learned that, in Thai culture, what is polite is to answer your phone immediately, regardless of what you are doing, even if you are busy enough to say you have to call the person back. A colleague of mine confided that he had gone native enough to do this in a job interview back in England, realizing just a moment too late wait, This Is NOT Thailand. Yes, it cost him the job.
So while in the United States, we confiscate student phones (I am allowed some leeway in this here) and force parents to pick them up, and remind the students that an employer will not allow you to sit and play on your phone; here in Thailand, that is exactly what everyone is doing in moments of down time, students, workers, Immigration officials… Nothing can be ‘mai sanuk,’ after all. I suppose there isn’t any harm in this in moments of down time, generally speaking. I am a little leery of the motorbike taxi drivers on their phones while driving.
Aside from the complete opposite take on cell phone usage, cell phone decoration is quite lucrative, and options are many. However the moment I decide investing in rhinestone-studded accessories and/or a Hello Kitty cell phone is a great idea is the day I’ve been here too long. Though to be fair Hello Kitty has no age limit here.
So cute!
As previously mentioned, cell phone usage at my school drives me absolutely nuts. Not the least of which because I have a rather personal disdain for the things to begin with and there is absolutely no rule against them at school.
I’ve come to realize it’s not just school. I read on another expat’s blog that if you see a Thai girl without a cell phone, run because there is something wrong with her. And while I first viewed this assessment as harsh, it’s become apparent that taking out exceptions for extreme poverty (and even then, phones are much more affordable here), that pretty much every Thai person has a cell phone. And I mean everyone – the monks have cell phones. What on Earth a monk needs a cell phone for, I don’t know, but then again I have yet to figure them out, and some of the ones in Bangkok are just in it for the free ride.
Boundaries of appropriate times and frequency with which to call also seem to be open to interpretation, though I realize that is an individual thing; I’ve run into it in a variety of contexts. Can I call you every day? No. Blank stare. Can I call you every day? NO. Blank stare. Lost in Translation, even with translation.
I went to the gym today for the first time since before Songkran and as usual I noticed the high volume of people texting while on the treadmill, with eyes glued to their iPhone while lifting weights with their quadriceps, or merely sitting on various pieces of equipment, eyes glued to their phone. I think their thumbs are getting a better workout than the rest of them.
I’ve learned that, in Thai culture, what is polite is to answer your phone immediately, regardless of what you are doing, even if you are busy enough to say you have to call the person back. A colleague of mine confided that he had gone native enough to do this in a job interview back in England, realizing just a moment too late wait, This Is NOT Thailand. Yes, it cost him the job.
So while in the United States, we confiscate student phones (I am allowed some leeway in this here) and force parents to pick them up, and remind the students that an employer will not allow you to sit and play on your phone; here in Thailand, that is exactly what everyone is doing in moments of down time, students, workers, Immigration officials… Nothing can be ‘mai sanuk,’ after all. I suppose there isn’t any harm in this in moments of down time, generally speaking. I am a little leery of the motorbike taxi drivers on their phones while driving.
Aside from the complete opposite take on cell phone usage, cell phone decoration is quite lucrative, and options are many. However the moment I decide investing in rhinestone-studded accessories and/or a Hello Kitty cell phone is a great idea is the day I’ve been here too long. Though to be fair Hello Kitty has no age limit here.
So cute!
Saturday, January 22, 2011
In Search of Sanuk
I will try to keep this post related to In Search of Sanuk; with minimal personal updates beyond my experiences there today. The past three Saturdays I have gone to volunteer, well - at least FOUND the two locations for volunteering, with Sanuk my Saturday - a branch of In Search of Sanuk, (Sanuk means fun in Thai). For a better explanation, here is the website:
http://www.insearchofsanuk.com/
Today, I handed my new Nikon digital SLR camera (a Christmas present, apologies for still not getting to my entries about December - and SO excited about my camera!!!) over to a small girl. She asked me in Thai several times could she take photos with my camera before I finally asked another volunteer that speaks Thai what she wanted; and then I placed the camera strap around her neck, showed her to put her eye to the view finder, and the button to push to take a photo. The camera was far too big for her small hands. I'm not sure her age - maybe 8? Younger? She proceeded to take several photos of portions of my face - then happily scurried to photograph the other kids and things around the Wat.
I fully expect her to be working for National Geographic in 20 years. Ok, maybe not - but if a way was made for her, she certainly could. This simple act turned into many of the kids wanting their turn taking photos, and my camera was passed around from person to person. I'm not sure how many of the kids took a turn with my camera, but aside from having to give it back - I'm pretty sure they all had a lot of fun. One of the boys even did a pretty good job focusing the lens manually - another documentary photographer in the making. Yes, I was slightly nervous about handing my nice new camera over to elementary age children. But I'm glad I did, and I know they had a lot of fun. I'm going to upload the photos they took, without cutting any, to my shutterfly account - see link on right hand column of this page. No, my shutterfly account is not up to date from a month without my computer. I'll get there. And a few of the photos in the batch of over 100, I took. I'll tag them. Sometime...
Aside from playing with my camera, one volunteer brought a cool game called jungle...something. A game from France involving color and shape matching. We modified it, but the kids loved it. There was also coloring pages with English vocabulary and playing with a local dog. That dog really wanted that sock. Last week was sock puppets - I wonder if it was left over. I can say I wish I knew how to sew a button better from that experience helping with the puppets. Made it work though. Previous Saturday - making play dough. One little girl had the biggest grin on her face as she handed me two yoghurt cups of soupy, purplish play dough mixture. I graciously accepted and smiled as it dripped down my jeans and shoes - she was so happy, it didn't matter. It's amazing what something as simple as play dough, puppets, a card game or using a camera can be to these kids.
Alright, I must be off - I'm keeping quite busy as of late. More eventually. I'm staying out of trouble. Mostly. Also - the photo uploading is going to take a long, long time... they (just the ones from today) may not be ready for a couple of days depending on my internet connection.
http://www.insearchofsanuk.com/
Today, I handed my new Nikon digital SLR camera (a Christmas present, apologies for still not getting to my entries about December - and SO excited about my camera!!!) over to a small girl. She asked me in Thai several times could she take photos with my camera before I finally asked another volunteer that speaks Thai what she wanted; and then I placed the camera strap around her neck, showed her to put her eye to the view finder, and the button to push to take a photo. The camera was far too big for her small hands. I'm not sure her age - maybe 8? Younger? She proceeded to take several photos of portions of my face - then happily scurried to photograph the other kids and things around the Wat.
I fully expect her to be working for National Geographic in 20 years. Ok, maybe not - but if a way was made for her, she certainly could. This simple act turned into many of the kids wanting their turn taking photos, and my camera was passed around from person to person. I'm not sure how many of the kids took a turn with my camera, but aside from having to give it back - I'm pretty sure they all had a lot of fun. One of the boys even did a pretty good job focusing the lens manually - another documentary photographer in the making. Yes, I was slightly nervous about handing my nice new camera over to elementary age children. But I'm glad I did, and I know they had a lot of fun. I'm going to upload the photos they took, without cutting any, to my shutterfly account - see link on right hand column of this page. No, my shutterfly account is not up to date from a month without my computer. I'll get there. And a few of the photos in the batch of over 100, I took. I'll tag them. Sometime...
Aside from playing with my camera, one volunteer brought a cool game called jungle...something. A game from France involving color and shape matching. We modified it, but the kids loved it. There was also coloring pages with English vocabulary and playing with a local dog. That dog really wanted that sock. Last week was sock puppets - I wonder if it was left over. I can say I wish I knew how to sew a button better from that experience helping with the puppets. Made it work though. Previous Saturday - making play dough. One little girl had the biggest grin on her face as she handed me two yoghurt cups of soupy, purplish play dough mixture. I graciously accepted and smiled as it dripped down my jeans and shoes - she was so happy, it didn't matter. It's amazing what something as simple as play dough, puppets, a card game or using a camera can be to these kids.
Alright, I must be off - I'm keeping quite busy as of late. More eventually. I'm staying out of trouble. Mostly. Also - the photo uploading is going to take a long, long time... they (just the ones from today) may not be ready for a couple of days depending on my internet connection.
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