Thai Election poster. Will talk more about that in a future post, I promise... 

A burmese pagoda - rather more spectacular, don't you think? 

another angle on the Three Pagodas. For all the hype of the pass, the pagodas really aren't that special. It's what's around them that's so interesting... 

The two Burmese kids who drove us around the town 

statues of 500 monks near a temple in Burma 

Fun Mon kids selling things at the border 

Goats heads. Apparently, they eat this in Burma. Yummy! 

Can't read this, but most likely some sort of propaganda from the Burmese military government 

The line is right there. Welcome to Burma! 

The pagodas for which the fabled Three Pagodas Pass is named 

Momma at the waterfall on Doi Inthanon 

Ma and Pa, getting on an elephant in Ayutthaya 

them on the elephant, taken from the back of another elephant 

THe author on the top of Doi Inthanon, Thailand's highest mountain... 

With our posterboards... 

Alex and I (the big, tall white guys) with the group outside the restaurant. Yes, I am wearing a sweater. Hard to believe, but my Dakota blood has thinned a bit since I've come here it seems. Anything below 70 degrees seems a bit chilly. We're holding the large posterboards that they all signed for us... 

The Author crooning, with Alex (the white guy,) another of the teachers, and Aimy and Art, two of our students, at the party with the conversation class students. I do believe I was singing "House of the Rising Sun" at that point...

Postscript

I forgot to mention two very important things in the last posting. Number one, my parents will be here in exactly two weeks. That will be fun. I'm looking forward to showing them around immensely. Gonna start making a few reservations this week, as we are in the tourist high season here...
Secondly, today marks the one year anniversary of the tsunami, as I'm sure any of you not living in a cave on a deserted island know by now. There is a big memorial planned for today. It has been criticized, as the memorial is a very expensive event. Many are saying that the money for this memorial should go to rebuilding houses and lives rather than this big event. But it seems to be Thailand's way of saying to the world, "hey, we're back..." So it's rather interesting...
Received more loot from my students today. Got a tuk tuk made of Singha ( a local beer) cans, a stuffed cow autographed by the students who gave it to me, a comic book, a keychain that says "ABAC ENG II" (the course that I teach them) and "World's Greatest Teacher" (definitely not the case, but fun anyway,) on the other, and a piggy bank that is a ceramic cow wearing a football helmet (they know how much I love football.) It's been a fun few days. Yesterday was loads of fun, as we all had a great dinner at an Italian restaurant. It was a full four course meal, and while it cost me about 750 Baht (about $19.25, very expensive by local standards,) it's not bad at all considering that included desert, wine, an appetizer, and an impressive bowl of pasta.
Thinking I may head to an Island for New Year's, as I have a four day weekend. I guess we'll see. Hail progress!

Flip Flops on Christmas

As I sit here on this afternoon of Christmas Day, I'm wearing flip flops. Just thought I'd brag a bit to those of you back in the Northlands. Ha ha!
Things are okay here. Yesterday (Christmas Eve,) the University threw a big Christmas party. Free food, a large concert featuring some very popular Thai bands, and a carnival with games and the like. I won all sorts of stuff - a carton of soy milk, a copy of "Seventeen" magazine, a santa hat, several pens, a stuffed "Animal" the muppet drummer, and a couple of tubes of toothpaste. Then we went to a club known as Escudo, and that was about it. Plans are to go for a nice dinner today. All in all, it's pretty good. I was in Bangkok three years ago for Christmas, visiting my old Semester at Sea buddy, George, who was doing the same job back then that I'm doing now. We went to this club called "Narcissus," probably the most elite club in this city, full of local celebs living up their 15 minutes of fame. The plan is to go there on New Year's eve. Should be fun...
Interesting developments with Ms. Bee. Seems that her parents want to arrange a marriage for her. She wants no part of that, of course, and is rather angry that she is being pressed into such a thing. Stay tuned on that...
Last week, the kids in the converstation class took me and the other teacher out for dinner and drinks. It was a lot of fun - had some Heineken, some Karaoke, and they gave us a big thank you card. Gonna miss those kids, as that class is already finished. But I'm sure we'll see them around and about...
In the world of Sumo, one of my favorite sports, there has been an interesting development. One wrestler who goes by the name Kotooshu out of Bulgaria has become the first ever European promoted to the rank of Ozeki, the second highest rank in Sumo, behind Yokozuna, or Grand champion. Pretty interesting to see Sumo become an increasingly international sport, with the most dominant wrestler at this time (and for the past two years, really) being the Yokozuna named Asashoryu, out of Mongolia. He's so dominant that there hasn't been a second Yokozuna (there typically are two) since Musashimaru, a 500 lbs. + Samoan, retired about two years ago. Asashoryu one all six tournaments this year, a pretty rare feat of domination for a Sumo wrestler...
Happy Christmas. And hail progress!

Thaksin Shinawatra, Thailand's large-headed and ill-tempered Prime Minister and richest man. 

XMas in Siam

So Christmas is in the air here, or more appropriately, Xmas. This year will mark my second Christmas that I've spent in Thailand - I was here for the 2002 edition as well, when I was living in Japan. Came down for the long holiday then. Of course, since this is a predominately Buddhist country (with Muslims being the largest religious minority), all Christmas celebration is of a purely secular nature (other than a few isolated places, like the Roman Catholic university I work at). So what is Chrismas like in Bangkok? Well, it's very festive. You hear annoying popped-out covers of songs like "Jingle Bells" and "Rudolph" everywhere you go, and all of the hookers are wearing Santa hats. Of course, as many of you know, I am not a fan of this holiday - if I had my druthers, I'd be in someplace like Iran or Saudi Arabia for the month of December, where there is no semblance of Christmas whatsoever. The Marxist in me cannot tolerate the ridiculous consumerist pressure that goes with this holiday. Bah Humbug!
That being said, it is better here than it was in Japan, although only marginally. In Japan, "Last Christmas" by Wham, the 1980's pop outfit that gave George Michael his start, seemed to be the only Christmas song one could hear anywhere. My girlfriend during that time told me that "Last Christmas" was the first English song she ever learned. If I didn't have a shaven head right now, I'd be ripping out my hair just thinking about it...
In other news, the King (see the last post) gave his annual birthday speech this past Sunday. Much like other constitutional monarchies such as England or Japan, the King of Thailand officially has no political power and is purely the head of State. However, unlike in other countries, the King here has real moral gravitas, and his extolling or denoucing of something will likely alter the course of future events. In an earlier post I spoke of the cigarette packages here in Thailand (see below). This is a direct result the King's birthday speech from last year, when he urged the Thai people to quit smoking.
In this year's speech, the King said that he welcomed constructive criticism. This doesn't seem like that big of a deal at first glance, but it is a not so subtle message to Thaksin Shinawatra, Thailand's prime minister with a very large head (see the picture.) Mr. Thaksin, who is in his second term as P.M., has many similarities to GW Bush. They supposedly ran together when they went to Yale back in the 1970's, both are very very wealthy (Thaksin is Thailand's richest man,) and both of them often blame the media for their own shortcomings and have real issues with criticism or admission of their own mistakes. Thaksin has even sued a few reporters for slander, which is ridiculous. The whole event shows yet again that in Thai politics, the King is by far the most sensible and wise man in the whole system, even though he's officially above politics and not really in the system.
May progress be hailed!

His Majesty King Bhumibol Adulyadej - the King of Thailand. He's currently (and has been for some time) the longest reigning monarch in the world, having been on the throne of Thailand since 1946. They love him here - his picture, along with that of HM Queen Sirikit, seems to be in every home and shop within the Kingdom of Thailand. On Monday, it's his 78th birthday, so I don't have to work, which is nice. Much like the Queen's birthday is celebrated as Mother's Day here, so is the King's celebrated as Father's Day. So, love ya pops!

 

On Bodily Aesthetics

Happy Thanksgiving to you all who are in places where Thanksgiving is celebrated, or wish you were. For T-day this year, a restaurant known as "The Great American Rib Company" is putting on a proper Thanksgiving dinner, buffet-style, for 600 Baht (about $15). That's a rather spendy meal over here, but it will be good to have a proper thanksgiving feast - sure beats the two T-days I spent in Japan, where since I was working each time, Subway was the only place I could find that even had Turkey...

We are officially in cool season now here in mainland SE Asia. It's very comfortable - highs of about 30 C (high 80's for you farenheit lovers out there,) with lows around 22 - 23 (Low 70's), and since it's drier, not nearly as humid. But it's hillarious watching the locals react to this change in weather - everyone goes around wearing sweaters and sweatshirts, and I even see people shivering. Lots of people get colds, reacting to this change in weather. Some of my students have asked me if I can handle this cold weather. I just laugh and say, "you don't even know cold," and tell them how much it snowed back in Dakota last month already.

And now, to the title of this posting. It's very interesting to see how the ideas of what beauty is differ in different places and cultures. Most Thai people have a rather dark skin tone, the type of skin tone that people back in the US and elsewhere spend hour after hour and dollar after dollar in tanning beds and rubbing on tan accelerator to acheive. Most caucasian women would be jealous of the women here for this reason. However, Thai women want a completely different thing - they want the fairest skin possible. When you see models in Thai ads, they have porcelain skin. If you go into any drug store, you see aisles full of various products with skin-whitening agents in them. It's hard to find sunscreen less than SPF 50. When you see Thai women on the beach, they try to cover up as much as possible to keep from gettting any darker. It kind of makes me wonder if I could set up some sort of melanin exchange program, where I could pair up Thai and other SE Asian and western women and they could swap the chemicals that give them their skin tones. That would be a sure way to make some serious money...

Another area where the two cultures seem to differ in bodily aesthetics is in the perceived ideal body shape. Much like in the US and other western places, women want to be thin here. However, the type of thin look they are going for is much different. Whereas in the US, if one goes to a health club or other fitness facility, the number of people working out from both genders is nearly equal, if not even skewed toward more women than men, here you see few women jogging or biking or doing any sort of fitness activity. Instead, the 'skip a meal each day' approach seems to be popular here, as the toothpick-thin figure is favored in this society. It seems that in the US, the athletic look has gained popularity. Rather interesting...

Hard to believe that the Vikings have won three in a row. And whatever happens, this season has not been a waste, because at least we've swept the Packers. The Badgers did their customary late-season choke job. Mighty disappointing, although if I could see any other Big Ten team succeed and smile about it, it would be Joe Pa and Penn State. Hail progress!

The Author and one of the Loy Kratong beauty pageant contestants. (Not an ad for a performance of "Beauty and the Beast," as some of you may have suspected...)

Another view of the Kratongs 

Some larger Kratongs (bowls made of banana leaves) put together by some of the student organizations on campus. 

A Kratong floating in the pond on campus. There are candles and incense sticks on them. By putting a Kratong into the water, the Thai people are sybolically letting their troubles and worries float away with the Kratong. 

More Chinatown 

Blurry twilight picture from the BKK chinatown 

Nameless

So we're one week into the new semester, and so far, so good. I have one student who's from North Korea. She's already one of my favorites - a real sweetheart. I have a guy who did a year of High School in Indiana. I have a girl who did a year of High School in a small town near Rockford, Illinois, and has visited Madison. And the crowning of it all, there's a girl who did a year of high school in Fosston, Minnesota, and did her shopping in good ol' Grand Forks. Now isn't that crazy?

Not too much to say other than that. Will be doing some conversational English classes 2-3 nights per week. Should be pretty fun, and a good way to make some extra Baht. Loy Kratong is coming up this next week. Looking forward to that. The Thai people make these little floating devices and put candles on them, floating them in the river. It's one of the better festivals in Thailand, so I'm looking forward to seeing that.

I think that these riots in France are rather interesting, and worthy of a rant. During the chaos that followed Hurricane Katrina, the BBC brought on analyst after analyst who went on and on about how American society was so decrepit for allowing such a huge gap between the rich and the poor, and how the neglect of minorities was so manifest in what followed. Some of them went so far as to say that if a similar thing happened in Europe, everbody would "pull together" and overcome. What garbage this is, and these French riots prove it. Not that US society isn't in need of serious repair, and not that the gap between wealthy whites and poor blacks isn't deplorable, but you would think that Americans invented discrimination and poverty or something from listening to these guys, when in fact it's just as bad or even worse in other so-called industrialized countries. It took the most extreme natural disaster to bring out the worst of the ugly truths that exist in our society, while a single police chase gone bad was all it took in France. Again, I'm not saying we deserve a pass and don't desperately need to address a whole raft of questions, but Europe has the same issues, if not worse.
Anyhow, enough about that. Hail progress!

Back to school

Happy Birthday, North Dakota! And Happy NOVAember!

1 November marked the first day of the new semester, so glorious "vacation" is over. Back in lovely BKK again. Thetis is still a work in progress, but there has been progress, which is nice. I hope to have a draft out real soon. But then again, I've been saying that for a while...

The new classes seem to be good. Same schedule as last semeter - working three days a week, Mondays, Tuesdays and Fridays. However, it's really much better, as I'm at the Hua Mark campus, which means a.) there are better lunch options and b.) no hour and a half on the bus each day. And my first class of the day is only two floors below where I sleep. So that will certainly make things easy...

Had to cope with a few students from last semester emailing me and saying "teacher, why you flunk me?" One of them was from a guy who didn't use punctuation on his final. But not that big of a deal.

The remaining time in Phi Phi was excellent, although the ride back was miserable. They put me, the tallest guy on the bus, in the seat with the least leg room on the bus. Purely an accident, but they wouldn't even let me change. Oh well. It's good to be back home either way.

Hail progress!