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!

a family collecting shells at low tide on a sandbar in Krabi... 

Phi Phi' 

rubber tapping on Phi Phi 

View from my bungalow - this is the area of the island which was hit by the tsunami. As you can see, lots of construction and rebuilding going on, and still some rubble 

Longtail Boat tied up on a Phi Phi Beach 

A view of the bay on Phi Phi Island 

one of the wine drinking monkeys mentioned earlier 

crab in Krabi - isn't that funny... 

Song of the South

Have finally made it to Krabi province after a long and nasty battle with Miss Thetis which still isn't quite finished. But seeing as how I was on the verge of losing it completely, I needed to get out of the city. So I am currently on Ko Phi Phi, which despite sounding like a young child's way of asking to use the toilet ("ko" is pronounced more like "go"), is one of the most beautiful places on this planet. This island was one of the places devastated by last December's tsunami. Half of the island is still covered with rubble or is just empty, and the sounds of hammers and power tools can be heard everywhere. They seem to be making lots of progress rebuilding things here, and things will likely be back to "normal," or as close to that as they can be, soon.
Went Kayaking today. It was so beautiful - I could see little yellow and white fish swimming beneath me. However, My arms are already sore. Not looking forward to tomorrow morning.
But they seem to be making progress on it.
I was walking around the island today. on a remote and rocky part of the beach, I ran into an Israeli couple who seemed to be interacting with a family of wild monkeys. It turns out that they were out there (the Israelis) doing some prayers and celebrating one of the Jewish holidays ( I forget what it's called.) While they were praying, the monkeys snuck up behind them and started taking things out of their bag. They ate their anti-biotics, and drank the kosher sacramental wine that they had for this holiday. Being on a remote island in the middle of the Andaman Sea, Kosher sacramental wine isn't easy to find. So I assured them that God probably will understand their predicament. I got a few pics of the monkeys that will be posted when I return to BKK later this week.
Other than that, just relaxing, enjoying, and hailing progress.

a blurry self-taken shot of me with two of my favorite and most talented students from this past semester, Pla and Pim.

An impressive looking thundercloud, taken from my window... 

Containers Boundless

Containers Boundless

Smog - one of the joys of life in a mega city in the Developing world. If you enlarge this picture and look very carefully, you may be able to see the outlines of some of the downtown highrises through the thick smog. 

Seasons change

As I sit and write this posting, I have only eight more tests to correct. If my head wasn't shaven, I would've likely pulled all of my hair out by now. It's so maddening. I've gone into a fully nocturnal scedule for this correcting binge. Seems to be working well - I head to the convenience store, load up on dried fish, yogurt, canned coffee, and a few other snacks, flip on CNN to listen to the non-stop coverage of the localized apocolypse for this month (more on that below), and then dig in and bear down. Not looking forward to doing the same thing next semester, that's for sure...
My thoughts on the localized apocolypse for October(we've been averaging one major natural catastrophe a month now, doesn't it seem?), the massive quake in Kashmir. And with the events in Guatamala, it's actually two mini-apocolypses simultaneously, but Guatamala seems to have been forgotten with the massive nature of the Kashmir quake.
During my time living in Japan, I felt quite a few earthquakes, and nothing's scarier. The one thing we all take for granted is the ground beneath our feet - one thing we all trust, no matter what. When that comes into question, what a frightening time. And the sound that the buildings make is horrendous. The strongest I ever experienced was about a 5 on the Richter scale. Not terribly strong, as it only lasted a few seconds (I heard that the quake that caused the tsunami lasted nearly a minute,) but it was strong enough to stop some trains. I was in the shower when it hit, and I was certain I would have to go running naked out of the building. Thank God it stopped.
Recently, several of the natural disasters have hit areas with long-standing, bloody conflicts. It's been interesting to see how it has affected the conflicts. In Ache, the hardest-hit area in the tsunami, it was an impetus for a peace deal which recently saw Indonesian troops leaving that war-torn province, and the rebels turning in their weapons. In Sri Lanka, it deepened the conflict, as the government refused to allow any aid to go to rebel held parts of that island. It will be interesting to see what effect this has on Kashmir.
In other bad news of a much lighter nature, the Badgers lost for the first time this season. So it goes. Their national ranking has dropped from 14th to 23rd. But it's good to see Joe Pa and Penn State doing as well as they are. And the Yankees are done. This shows that there is some justice in the world...
The rainy season seems to be over here. Umbrellas are being used still, but now to block the sun rather than blocking the rain. We're entering the most comfortable few months of the year, where the temperatures are relatively cool (even getting near freezing some nights in the more mountainous north) and rain storms are few and far between. Should be nice.
Looking forward to getting out of town soon. Other than that, I've been putting off a large rant about Turkey and the EU, so I'll try to do that in the next posting. Hail progress!

My biggest photographic accomplishment to date - I've captured lightning! A big storm rolled through the Big Mango last night, knocking out power in my building for about four hours and causing flooding all over the city. I stood by my window with my camera and snapped one picture after another for about five straight minutes until I managed to get lucky and capture this one. If you click on the photo, you can see a bigger and more detailed version of it. It's worth it! 

Yet another pollution-enhanced Bangkok sunset, from my window... 

Loosenin' my grip...

You said you didn’t give a f--- about hockey,
I never saw someone say that before
You held my hand and we walked home the long way,
Loosenin’ my grip on Bobby Orr.

These are lyrics from the song called “Fireworks” by the Tragically Hip. As I sit writing this on this sunny Monday morning in Bangkok, nearly 24 hours removed from slumber, I’m beginning to understand how Gord Downie or whichever one of The Hip who wrote this song was feeling.

Made a big mistake last night. Some of my colleagues and I had talked about watching a bit of football (Americano style, pigskin, gridiron, whatever words you prefer.) As BKK is exactly 12 hours ahead of Central Daylight Time, this means that games which kick off at noon on Sunday kick off at midnight here. Staying up until 3 am is no big deal for us, especially since we had neither classes nor proctoring the next day. So we went down to the teacher’s lounge, which has a variety of satellite channels on which one can watch all sorts of sports ranging from Scottish soccer to Australian Rugby to Indian Cricket.
The early game was the St. Louis Scrams (formerly known as the Disney Lambs) at the New York (Football) Giants. The late game? The hated Atlanta Falcons taking on my beloved but inept Minnesota Vikings. This meant that I was going to be spending all night watching football. A bigger waste of time could not have been had – hence the title of this posting.
I quit watching at 5 am, when Atlanta was up 24-0. The Vikings could get no offense going whatsoever, which appeared to my untrained eye to be a product of an offensive line that is about as effective and coherent as FEMA under the Bush administration and a “revamped” defense that was as inept at stopping the scrambling of Matt Schaub as it was that of Michael Vick. It was just ugly. Perhaps I picked a good year to go abroad. My grip on Daunte Culpepper is loosening, much like Mr. Downie’s grip on Bobby Orr.
In other news, the baseball season is now finished. The Twins finished the year one game above .500 and in third place in the American League Central Division and fourth in the Wild Card race. Many would attribute this mediocre result to injuries of key people in key positions. I disagree with this, again, from my relatively uniformed position. In a 162 game season, a team should expect injuries in key positions – it’s part of the game that needs to be expected. The past three years when they won the division, they had similar injury numbers and in similar spots. I think the rest of the division finally caught up with them, and that the Twins three division titles were more of a reflection of the remainder of the division’s inability than of the Twins greatness. But this is just my opinion. Hopefully, the Twins can catch up and surpass them all next year.
The only really good news overall is that the Badgers are 5-0 after a win over the Big Ten’s Football version of the Arizona Cardinals, The University of Indiana Hoosiers, by a score of 44-21. They were ranked 17 in the nation last week, we’ll see if they climb any higher after this win.

In non-sporting news, I’ll be spending the next few days doing not much other than correcting tests. Once that is finished, will be revisiting the old girl, Miss Thetis, after a bit of an absence. Have done a bit of tinkering with it, but I need to get a draft out before too long, so I must do that before heading for Krabi. Also, this will give the rainy season a bit more time to run its course. I’m really looking forward to getting out of the city a bit, but first things first, right?
Also, I bought a comic book. I’m hoping this will help me bolster my Thai language ability. I just need a dictionary now…

God help the poor Balinese. Two bombings in three years cripple an already hobbled tourism industry. May have to head to Bali this March, as I’d like to do my part to help them recover a bit.

Not too much else to report. Hail progress!

This is how a jackfruit is properly sliced. Thank you, Mr. Security guard...