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.
The Thai royal family is very revered in Thailand. You will see photos and images of the king and queen all around the country. The BBC made a great documentary about them, called “The Soul of a Nation.” Check it out.
Like the religious paintings at wats, any trip to Thailand is sure to include innumerable sightings of Buddhist sculptures. This is one area of visual arts that has been well documented, described and preserved.
There are a handful of significant periods of Buddhist sculpture, and if you know what to look for on the Buddha icons, they become much less monotonous and more interesting as you try to figure out which period’s style is having the most influence on the sculpture you happen to be viewing. Here’s a breakdown of the various periods and their characteristics.
When most people think of art history, the things that come to mind are the masterpieces by largely European men like Michelangelo and Da Vinci, or paintings representing various stories from the Bible.
Paintings in Thailand also began, and often still, focus on the religious myths of the area, depicting stories from the life of the Buddha or of the various Hindu gods and goddesses that have influenced life here. Some of the best places to see Thai paintings are wats, on the walls of the ceremonial halls. But what are some of the characteristics of Thai art?
When it comes to the visual arts in Thailand, it seems that the subject matter is not particularly varied. Much of the art produced hews to religious depictions, much like the performing arts traditions such as the Khon and Nang Yaai. However I suppose that can be attributed to the theory that generally arts don’t develop in a society that spends much of its time focusing on survival. That’s not to say there is no visual art in Thailand. In fact, there is at least one place in every village that likely showcases some very essential Thai art.
A quick glance at social media, and you’ll find the “Ice Bucket Challenge” spreading like wildfire. Ostensibly, it’s meant to raise money and awareness for ALS, a debilitating disease. Meanwhile, Thais (and Indians) have made the “Ice Bucket Challenge” their own by making the “Rice Bucket Challenge” to give away a bucket of rice to a family in need. Check it out!
It is the thick of rice growing season in Isaan right now. The land has sprung to life, and gazing out the bus windows I’m greeted with kilometer upon kilometer of green rice paddies. It’s a welcome change from the dirt plots, occasionally broken up by a cassava or sugar cane field, and I think the chartreuse of new rice plants may be my new favorite color.
So of course, Thailand is known for its rice production; it was once the top exporter of rice before the rice subsidy scheme place the rice export in the hands of politicians. But what crops are cultivated by the rural majority of this country?
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.
A couple months ago, my co-teacher asked me if I wanted to join her and some other teachers on a trip to Koh Kut, an island near Koh Mak along the Eastern seaboard and near Cambodia. Feeling like I hadn’t spent much time with her, and thinking that this would be a great opportunity for me to bond with some other teachers, I smiled and said, “Yes, that sounds like a lot of fun!” Flash forward to last week, and the day of the trip had arrived – it was time for a fully Thai-style bpai tiao.
Earlier this year I started using this really neat app called One Second Everyday. Basically, it allows you to pick a second of a video or picture of everyday and then you can export them into a longer video. I thought this was super cool and so I’ve been trying to do this throughout the year, similar to my sentence a day for last year. Here’s a video summary of August!
In my village, I don’t have many people that I would consider my peers. There are elderly couples, couples in their late 40s to early 50s, teenagers and young children. Young adults are very rare in my rural area, and when talking to other Peace Corps volunteers, this is not an anomaly.
People in my generation are leaving the villages more and more to find work, or sometimes education, in the larger cities. But, unlike in the U.S., where the age of a first time mother is rising, Thais still get married and start a family comparatively young. New numbers from a study that was supported by UNICEF are showing that a large proportion of these kids are left in the villages with their grandparents, with some concerning results.
A quick search of the Internet for top vacation and retirement destinations will frequently turn up Thailand. A jaunt over to Amazon to find some books about Thailand will inevitably return numerous guidebooks and works of fiction written by white men who have either moved or vacationed here. There is not much fiction written in English by a Thai author. Which is why I was excited to find “Sightseeing” by Rattawut Lapcharoensap, a collection of short stories about Thailand.