I served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Thailand from 2013 to 2015. I worked as a Primary Teacher Trainer and lived in Isaan, the rural northeast of the country. In these posts, you’ll find information relating to Peace Corps and things related to the program and agency, as well as official Peace Corps work from my time in Thailand. For Thailand specific information, check out the Thailand category.
One thing that I see a lot of Thais struggle with, especially in Isaan, is low levels of self-esteem and self-confidence. When it comes to speaking English, many Thai people demure, and are embarrassed by their accent or small grammar mistakes. I came across this interview with Jon Jandai, a man from Isaan talking about how he overcame his shyness and gained self-confidence, and I wanted to share it.
Yesterday, after hearing about it since the beginning of the semester four weeks ago and watching the kids practice sometimes during class time, was finally Sports Day. This Sports Day just involved the students at our school, not other schools like the Sports Day I briefly attended when I visited back in March.
Thailand is a tourist destination. Tourism accounts for more that 15 percent of Thailand’s GDP. However, the Thailand that I experience is not the Thailand that most tourists experience. Tourists generally stick to the major cities: Phuket, Chiang Mai and Bangkok. Particularly when it comes to the capital, the differences between tourist Thailand and rural Thailand are extremely stark.
In Thailand, a bpai tiao is a trip of any length. I’ve written about some of my more significant bpai tiaos to tourist destinations here, to be used as travel ideas and tips.
Every year, usually sometime in November, Thailand celebrates Loi Krathong. It’s believed that the holiday originated in the ancient capital city of Sukhothai. Part of the traditions for celebrating include releasing small floats on bodies of water and floating lanterns in the sky.
It’s been an exciting time for me in my fourth, fifth and sixth grade classes.
With all of these classes, Kru Ning and I were able to teach all of the letter sounds last semester. We’ve continued review the letter sounds at the beginning of class as well. But I can see the some of the kids’ eyes glaze over when we do this. They haven’t had a chance to see how to use the information that we’ve taught them. This semester, they’re getting a chance to put it all to use.
In Thailand, a bpai tiao is a trip of any length. I’ve written about some of my more significant bpai tiaos to tourist destinations here, to be used as travel ideas and tips.
On the evening of the full moon of the 12th lunar month in Thailand, the holiday Loi Krathong is celebrated. Loi Krathong roughly translates as “floating crown.” People throughout Thailand make or buy little floats made from banana leaves and decorated with flowers. On them they place a candle, incense and their wishes on to send out on the water. The Lanna hill tribe celebrates the same day with the Yi Peng festival by releasing floating lanterns into the night sky.
I recently had some visitors come to my rural village in Thailand. Since school had recently started up again, I decided to have them come and help me out in my classes. We played a bunch of games to review what was taught last semester. Everyone had a ton of fun!
In Thailand, there are some pretty strict traditional gender roles. Men and boys do manual work while women and girls clean. In the social hierarchy, women are considered lower than men. However, gender is a construct. There are lots of people around the world who challenge the ideas of what gender means and how it’s expressed. Thailand is particularly well known for people who challenge traditional notions of gender identity and expression.
A friend of mine who is serving in Cameroon has a friend who decided to go to Thailand for a month and she put us in touch. I figured I would offer up some travel tips for the country, places to go, must sees. After getting in touch, I offered to let her and her travel companion stay with me if they wanted, thinking that I’m a bit far off the beaten path and they probably wanted to hit the major sites, as there is a lot to do here in Thailand. I was happily surprised when I got a call on Friday asking to be taken up on the offer.
Appearance is everything in Thailand. There is a special emphasis on how you look and what you wear. Thai people have no problem with pointing out to you if you are looking fat lately or if there is a pimple on your face. Comments letting you know they don’t really like your curly, wavy hair and that they think you should wear it up more often are normal. Perhaps this is the reason why Thai people take so many pictures of themselves. Even beyond that, how you dress is also particularly important.