Thailand Update

Hey you guys! 

sorry I couldn’t post on my birthday was really busy that week and then had my last week of school! That is right school is now over in Thailand and I am now 16 years old. Its strange if you want to know. On my birthday I was like ok so now I say I am 16 (sip hawk) in Thai language, I can do this. Don’t feel any different just was glad I got to celebrate my birthday in Thailand. 

^ The good looking class of M.5/6 now proud to say M.6! My whole class surprised me by all 44 classmates giving 10 baht to buy me a cake! It was a complete surprise and so sweet! It was really funny when I found out that all 46 of us were going to eat it. 

A little fun fact about Thai culture on birthdays, every birthday is important and they do give birthday cakes, sing happy birthday (in English). But until they surprise you with cake they act like it is a normal day and do not give presents. In fact, you give them something on your birthday. That surprised me when a teacher took me out to lunch and asked what I got my friends. Don’t panic. I got my friends some Thai treat things. 

At dinner my family was at our friends house and they made sure they had food the foreigner could eat, which is really sweet of them. Dinner had at least 5 plates full of food that they could add chili peppers themselves so I could eat everything. As an exchange it is a unmentioned requirement to EAT EVERYTHING or try everything given to you. Let it be squid, small fish, the chili peppers cooked with every meal. Luckily I did not have to take such adventurous action that day. 

My favorite part of that day was during dinner my older brother told me he forgot the cake at home. I do hate to admit I was deceived very well. He showed me the bag of spoons and paper plates and smiled and said sorry no eat cake in broken English and I fell for it. I was fooled even to the moment when everyone brought out a small Chinese food cookie thing that I can’t explain in English much to my horror. My mom put 6 candles in the cookie and started to sing happy birthday to me. I was laughing and smiling so hard because it was so silly looking and my Thai mom was speaking English to me for the first time. I started to get confused after she continued to sing for 3 minutes… Then everyone came in through the door they apparently left through during my mother’s singing to bring in the really cake! I am was completely surprised by friends and family twice in one day. I called my brother a liar, happy as I was to be lied to then “Wai”ed (pressing both hands together and fingers pointing upwards) and made my birthday wish. As much as I would like to share my wish I think the internet does still count by not telling anyone. 

These past two weeks have been really nice. Without school I have been staying home most days and spending time with my family. I have officially been with them for 3 months and have never been happier here in Thailand. I am not thinking of the past just the moments I have left with them. 

My little sister graduated kindergarten so I got to go to her school. I would love to show you pictures but my computer is slow with the internet here so I will be uploading them soon to Facebook if you care to stalk me.

I have a little less than 70 days left in Thailand and by the looks of my schedule I will be enjoying them completely. I will be going to Chiang Mai. You may not know, but it is very famous in Thailand and said to be breath taking. I am going there for my later than planned mid stay camp do to the very real situation in Bangkok. I hope to talk more about that some other time to let you know what really is going on around the world. From there I will go traveling to do a community service project that I am super excited for. The project is a part of my program with YES ABROAD. Later on in the month hopefully one of my friends on my program scholarship will be able to come to my amazing province to hangout for a week. 

Then through all of this I will be working on my Capstone Project which is a final project that students of Y.A. are required to do and it is a way to share something that reflects the country I have called home for the past year. I am excited and freaking out over it but, do not worry things seem to be coming together. I will not inform you, not because I am writing this at 12:20 at night, just I want to keep it a surprise. 

Overall dear friends and family, I am doing wonderfully and happy/ heartbroken to see you all so soon. I am eating all the food I can to make sure I am living up to being a fat exchange student. I am speaking Thai language every single day. I am making memories with my Thai family that does not need to share the same blood or language to know I love them. I will be better now with summer in full swing and things actually happening to be posting of my bitter sweet weekly adventures in Thailand. 

Swadiee ka, 

Mary

Laundry and Little Dogs

I am such a cool person I have disguised this post to be lame and only personal. 555 I have fooled you.
Let me start with something important to me.

You are not your language. That is a phrase I have started to tell myself when I talk to my friends and family from all around the world and a way to remind myself that I don’t have to act a certain way here. Just because you speak Thai doesn’t make a certain way, just most people think you are that way because of what they know about culture and country. The same goes for all the countries and languages around the world. We need to understand that the majority of  us make expectations about everything from people to the food of a country that could be negative when living there. I know I sound like I am repeating what has been told to people over and over again but one of these times it has to finally stick. I know I needed to experience it myself to understand the importance of it. Because once we get those thoughts out of the way, we have the opportunity to do so many good deeds with others from around the world. Can you imagine the things that could be accomplished and created with a united effort on a worldwide scale without any mental barriers we build to have differences between us that hold us back?

I feel like there is nothing more to say on that topic at this time so lets keep this post rolling!

So the reason for my lame title is because it Saturday and that means it is Laundry day! woohoo! please hold your applause family members who know I never did much of that back home. And so I am writing this post between doing the laundry and I go outside to hang up my clothes and I see one of the stray dogs in my village and it just squeezes through the gate walks around in the yard and walks right out through the way it came. It is really strange because most of the strays here are small dogs who can do that. The dog idea and believes are different here in Thailand so it may be hard on dog lovers to hear this. There are lots of stray dogs here in Thailand alot of them live on the streets living of scrapes people give them. Now you may be starting to think this is cruel but here it is really nice of people to do cause they don’t have space or baht for a dog and so they give them food when they can. And many nights you can hear the barking of the dogs and possible fights between them. Here it something you learn to live with and accept as a non-local it could be hard for people to understand the thought process of the Thai people about dogs. I say these things not to offend or be rude but to share the differences we have and accept others.

10 days until grandfather very excited to see him have some plans I will surprise him with and the gifts he with bring from home!

Ok so the other week was Halloween and my adviser and coordinator asked me the day before if I could go in front of the school in a Halloween costume and talk about Halloween to the students. With one day to prepare I think I did pretty good! With a scrap construction paper witch hat and trash bag cape I looked like a hobo witch. Oh don’t forget my crazy Halloween socks!

 Luckily the students didn’t seem to notice my embarrassment.  The student had to answer the question of what were the 2 popular Halloween colors! Answer: Black and Orange. He got a caramel apple lollipop from home!

 These are my socks that shocked every teacher and student I wore them all day! I felt on top of the world 😉

After school I came home and had a failed on my part Halloween dinner I made of hot dogs mummies and jello that never set… But after the ok dinner I made. My mom and sister gave me Halloween candy! I stayed up and watched Halloween movies hoping to have a candy hangover.

Now I am listening to christmas music on a very sunny day here in Thailand wanting some snow but worried how that would affect the my laundry drying in the sun…

So I leave you now with some words of wisdom.

“There are no foreign lands it is only the traveler who is foreign.”
With foreign love,
Mary,ญาดา

I think I understand…?

That is my thought every time I have a conversation. For the people out there who think being an exchange student is easy, you don’t even know the half of it. We post cool pictures on the internet to make you jealous of the adventure but you are only seeing the happy moments, not the daily struggles to function successfully in our foreign country. Don’t misunderstand me I love it here I do not want leave but, I want to try to get through to your empathy and imagine such challenges you have never faced before.

Well, that was a good welcome to my blog 😉 Thanks for reading and haha I did in fact make another post before Monday! My box my mom sent me came yesterday while I was ironing my school uniforms, ( my Thai mom she got them monogrammed with my Thai name! Yaada which means Philosopher and my Thai nickname, Tubtim, means like ruby, pomegranate cause the first week I was really red in the face from blushing and the heat so my classmates thought it fight nicely 😉 ) so now I am already for school… I should be excited to see my friends but it will sad to watch their faces when they start speaking Thai to me, I have improved greatly over the week with the new family but not ready for a Thai teenage conversation. I am lucky I almost have the 47 characters of the Thai alphabet memorized.

here lets take a picture break! my blog looks boring!

my house! And my sister!

whoa wasn’t that exciting? I love my house its so open and comfortable right now I am siting on the couch and it is a comfy as it looks! I spend all day downstairs cause way too hot upstairs. At this moment my sister, P’Pat is at her part-time job as English tutor and Khun Meh is at home doing her teacher work on the computer listening to soothing Thai music. I really love it here and I am bonding with my sister over Japanese cartoons and Korean music. It has been fun!

But back to earlier about the box! I want to thank my best friend Anna for all the amazingly sweet letters you wrote me and I am writing you one so expect to hear from my mom later. And mom and dad and Leighann thanks for getting the Idaho shirts for my family it means a lot to me to give them something. And all the snacks and awesome socks I am trying to figure out if I can get away with wearing them at school. 😉 We don’t celebrate Halloween here so I think to socks will have to do. As soon as I say the TARDIS socks I put them on and was sliding around the house in them! So please know my family and friends who helped with box I am grateful!

Lets see what else… OH! right. MY GRANDFATHER IS COMING TO THAILAND!! (explains the count down) I am so psyched to see him! we get to spend to afternoon together! Gosh darn whenever I think about I start bouncing in my seat like a little kid 🙂 And other news I am answering questions for the yearbook so there will be an article about me so everyone should get a yearbook now because it will be wonderful cause of Elizabeth 😉 I made this video for this American AFS official who was in Thailand and knew about me and works with Yes Abroad but I think its better now so I will share with you! Later!

With foreign love,

Mary
P.S never mind about the video its not loading but I will share it soon!! sorry to get you excited.
P.P.S look hashtags! #AFS #YESABROAD