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.

How to Survive Bangkok as a Single White Female

1. Be Twitterific.
2. But try not to become an internet zombie.
3. Traffic and internet bandwidth will simultaneously bottleneck.
4. Get in the back of a Hoopdee.
5. Look Ma, No Hands!
6. Go ahead, flip him off if he’s tailing you.
7. Eat the street food.
8. You’re going to get sick, deal with it.
9. And the hospital may overcharge you. Go any way.
10. Tit jokes are the best.
11. Dance, lip sync, and be ridiculous with your iPod in public. Everyone is already staring, you’re a white girl in Asia.

1. How do you find out what’s going on in Bangkok, or elsewhere in Thailand? You might get some clue from the two English language news venues. But for the real down low, fellow expat’s twitter feed. Seriously. First responders.

2. You’re going to have to learn how to play work. Yeah, we actually work, but sometimes there are gaps. Very, very wide gaps. Which, when it’s functioning, turn into surf the internet time. Try not to let your brain turn to mush watching Lonely Island’s “Like a Boss” for the umpteenth time. No matter how much you laugh out loud. Though, I am curious to see how all the foreign teachers fare as SIMS living in the same house, as programmed by the South African teacher. Yeah our job rocks.

3. But, the internet won’t always work. And it’ll stop working in some sort of horrible synchronization with the ebb and flow, or dead standstill, of Bangkok traffic. And it is maddening. I understand why everyone here is constantly staring at their smart phone. That is their internet surfing unwind time, because it is so late by the time they finish their commute home.

4. Hail the ricketiest taxi you possibly can. He’s been around the block a few times, he knows his stuff, and he’s less likely to harass and/or molest you. On that note, get in the back, especially as a single white female. Screw seatbelts, unfortunately.

5. Yeah, motorbikes are dangerous. But they are efficient, fun, and hey look, he has to keep both his hands on the handlebars to drive! Bonus!

6. So you’ve got another guy tailing you. He’s not getting it. From a blog post I read the other day, even North Koreans understand a good clear, “F&$# Off!” and flash of the bird. Sometimes guys can’t take any other hint. Screw cultural understanding, there are limits no one should have to put up with.
On that note, after months of such advances from Thais and avoiding clubs, you might forget how to respond to being hit on by a white guy. Wait what just happened there? Did I ever actually know how to process that? Brain are the dumb.

7. It’s not just the street food that will make you sick. You might get sick from a restaurant, breathing the air, obviously working with students…stop living in a bubble. You don’t have to eat everything, but avoiding everything is overkill. Some of my best I’m sick comfort food is the Chinese style soup sold out of metal carts on the sidewalk.

8. You’re going to get sick. Or rather, I’m going to get sick. It doesn’t particularly matter what country I live in. As my colleague put it, “yeah, but everything makes you sick!” Don’t let that stop you. I waited long enough fearing I couldn’t deal with SE Asia with all of my health problems. Now I wonder why I waited so long.

9. The white person overcharge. It sucks, it especially sucks when you’re sick and don’t realize it is happening. But it’s not US prices, and if you really need to go, don’t spend 10 days hugging the toilet in denial that you need to go. On that note – that 7 kilos you lost was good health insurance!

10. When all else fails, remember, ‘This Is Thailand’ explains everything. And nothing. And everything.

11. You want to fit in with the culture. Well get over that. You are white. You are ‘sui,’ you look like baby, you are all kinds of odd observations, stereotypes and representations of all of the countries that white people hail from. But you are always farang. And singing along to your mp3 player, skipping and dancing as you walk down the street is certainly not the worst you can do to represent your fellow white man.