Service Learning at BEAM

I know I’ve mentioned working at a place called BEAM a couple times before, but never really intensively talked about it. As you may know, I’m on a service-learning program that combines academic study with volunteering in the community. We get placed by our program director according to skill set, interest, and availability.

When we met at the beginning of the semester and I mentioned that as a biology student I have a background in the natural sciences, my program director put me in touch with an organization called BEAM, which stands from Bridging Educational Access to Migrants. These migrants come mainly from the ethnic states of Myanmar, who are in Chiang Mai to seek better opportunities for work. Many of them seek out opportunities for education as well, and so many migrant schools have sprung up in Thailand, everything from elementary schools in the refugee camps to evening classes for migrants wanting to learn English.

Many schools also teach vocational skills, like tailoring or computer work, to help migrants be more employable or even open up their own businesses. The problem is that most migrants are undocumented and are constantly at a risk for deportation. This, as well as not having Thai language skills, prevents them from going to a traditional government school. None of the migrant schools are accredited, so there is little to no opportunity for migrants to attend university even if they have high school equivalency.

Enter BEAM. Established in 2009, this non-profit organization split off from the Migrant Learning Center in Chiang Mai to meet the needs of the students for a high school equivalency, currently limited to the western General Education Diploma. The GED program at BEAM is a two year course that teaches students the English skills as well as the content needed to pass the GED exam. Most people in the west with critical reading and thinking skills could pass the GED if they wanted, as all information to answer the questions is provided, it’s all about being able to interpret the text, graphic, or chart.

I was asked to teach a GED-preparation chemistry course for the second year students, some of which would be sitting the exam in late November and some not until 2014. I was given a textbook and a few other materials to teach out of, but other than that the curriculum was up to me. It was a huge challenge to undertake, but I felt confident in my enthusiasm, commitment, and understanding of the material. I would teach a lecture to morning and evening students every Friday, and then offer an optional afternoon class to give extra help in the form of worksheets, one-on-one questions, activities, and videos.

My students were very sweet and very patient with me as I stumbled over their unfamiliar Southeast Asian names. They were attentive during class but sometimes struggled when I gave assignments to be turned in later. There was no formal grading system; it was just up to me to quantify their learning in the form of projects and quizzes. I had them each research a different element when I was gone on my two week break, and they came up with some pretty interesting stuff!

During the afternoon class some memorable activities were watching Magic School Bus and Bill Nye the Science Guy. We also grew our own sugar crystals and I showed them how the polymers in plastic bags keep water from spilling out even when you poke a pencil through. We also broke out a molecular modeling kit when talking about the structures of different compounds. There was lots of equipment and glassware available for my use, but I did not find out until later that there was a locked cabinet with chemicals somewhere in the office. I would have brought in my own stuff but I had no idea how to buy chemicals in Thailand! The classroom wasn’t really conducive to experiments, though, and the Thai custom of removing one’s shoes before entering a room or building posed a bit of a safety threat. I hope the students found my class interesting and fun, though.

Chemistry only accounts for around 15% of the science subject test, so I felt a little like a weight was taken off my shoulders. I also found out that BEAM has a 100% pass rate for the students who sit, having graduated three classes already, so I hoped my efforts contributed a little to its sterling reputation. This was a very humbling experience overall, though, as it really is all about the students’ motivation to succeed and aspire to do more with their lives than the preceded generations of migrants.

Doing international service work can be a slippery slope, as it’s all too easy to fall into the “foreign savior” trap and think that you can swoop in like a superhero and save all the poor people from whatever social ill ails them. This is a form of neo-colonialism and it does not show respect for the existing culture. Instead, international service work should be about integrating into the community and working for what it truly needs, rather than what the volunteers think the community needs. Working at BEAM may not have been as glamorous as building houses or caring for orphans, but it made a difference where a difference was needed. I now believe that working “with” people is far more effective and important that working “for” people. As someone looking to pursue a career that seeks to serve others, this is a critical insight and I am so grateful for the opportunity to develop in a unique way.

Today I leave for Bangkok to fly back to the States tomorrow. I will try to have at least one more blog post wrapping up my thoughts about this incredible journey, but until then I want to thank each and every one of you, dear readers, for your continued support. I really could not have done it alone. 

Karen Village Homestay

Well, as I said, finals week got the best of me and I have just been running around like crazy with studying, exams, papers, and my last week of service work not to mention trying to get everything packed up and ready to leave the country TOMORROW. I don’t think I’ll believe it until I’m sitting on the plane headed over the Pacific Ocean.

I wanted to do a full post on the Karen village experience that I had the week after we got back from Bangkok. The Karen are an ethnic minority in Southeast Asia, mostly living in Thailand and Burma. The trip was meant as an extension of our service learning, but was a bit of an experimental trip as my program director was invited by a personal friend named Man to visit his remote village of Mae Pah Bpoo for a weekend and was encouraged to bring some students. Four students (myself included) volunteered to head up on a Friday afternoon until Sunday evening, ready for adventure and to have a unique and immersive cultural experience.

We were advised to pack light – just a backpack or so – but warm because being up in the mountains during the “winter” was sure to bring some chill. I packed the thickest jacket and scarf I brought with me to this otherwise tropical climate and after Buddhism class on Friday we piled in a pick-up truck to head up the windy mountain roads. We stopped first at a market to buy food and bottled water.

The journey was a very bumpy four hours, but the view was beautiful and we had a nice time talking, laughing, and bonding so the time went quickly. We made a quick stop at the town of Samoeng, which is famous for its strawberries! Sadly they were still one month out of season but since being back in Chiang Mai I’m starting to see them at the markets. It was nightfall when we finally reached the village, and we were greeted by the headman before we took our stuff to Man’s uncle’s house where we would all be staying. There was a small bedroom for the two guys and some mats laid out on the floor in the main room for the three girls. We then went over to Man’s mother’s house for dinner. Karen food is absolutely amazing – a mountain of rice that you can top with different stewed vegetable and meat dishes. My favorite that night was boiled pumpkin, and there was also different kinds of mountain vegetables and morning glory vine, which is a popular dish in Thailand and very tasty.

After dinner we drank some beer and tea and then went around visiting a few different villagers. One man who fondly asked us to call us “Grandpa” invited us into his house to sit and chat. Man could translate for the villagers who only spoke Karen, and my program director could also speak with them if they knew Thai. We also picked up a few essential Karen words: “tah blueh” is the word for both “hello” and “thank you,” so we said that a lot. “Oh ah ah” means “eat a lot!” – we were urged to do that at every meal, to the point where our favorite phrase in Thai became “im jah dai” – “I’m so full I’m going to die.” We also heard a lot of “gola,” which means white person, the equivalent in Thai is “farang.”

We didn’t go to bed terribly late but it felt like almost no time had passed when Man came in to wake us up. We got dressed and had breakfast at Man’s mother’s house again. Man had told us about the oldest woman in the village. “She complains all the time that she wants to die already, but she has a good heart,” he told us. She was very tiny, as you can imagine, but still very alert and could move around her house by herself. Her son in law was the “Grandpa” we visited the night before. I gave her the last bar of soap and basket I brought from home, both handmade in Colorado, and she seemed to like them.We asked several times how old people thought she was, and we would get a slightly different answer each time, but all estimates were over one hundred, which was amazing. She had helped build the road to Wat Doi Suthep in the 1930s, and had walked all the way from her village to Chiang Mai and back in order to do so. When we went back and took pictures with her the next day, I sat next to her and she held my hand.

We were originally supposed to help the villagers build a rice barn on Saturday, but the headman had called a meeting and it was decided that the village would rather use the money to buy chairs for their elementary school instead. So we had some free time to talk a walk to the next village over and visit the river. Man told us it was “just over that hill” but after two hours of hiking up a mountain in the hot sun we began to question his judgment of distance. We were accompanied by a flock of elementary aged boys, who ran ahead, climbed up the trees, pulled off branches to eat berries, and shot at birds with the slingshots they carried with them. At the top we stopped to talk to some teenagers on motorbikes to see if we could negotiate an impromptu taxi service. We were in luck, though, when a guy from Mae Pah Bpoo pulled up in his truck, heading for the same place we were.

After a bumpy ride down the mountain we arrived at the river and all the boys immediately pulled off their shirts and jumped in the freezing water. Since there wasn’t anyone else around, we girls stripped down to shorts and sports bras and joined them. The water was so refreshing and exhilarating to totally lie down and immerse our whole bodies. We wandered upstream for a little while before having to get out and catch the truck back to Mae Pah Bpoo.  We took turns taking showers; the village has running water in a few small bathroom buildings that are shared by the community. By this time it was mid-afternoon, so we had a late lunch (I could not stop eating this excellent noodle dish that was basically Ramen and cabbage except awesome) and then a little nap on the floor of Man’s mother’s house before going outside and watching the boys play soccer in the late afternoon light.

In the evening we met back with the headman, as he wanted to talk to us about coming to their village and about their way of life. Our director had brought a huge tin of little shortbread and apricot biscuits, which were so addictive that I must have had “my last one, I promise” too many times to count. The village does not have electricity except for rewired car batteries and  solar panels that were given to them under former prime minister Thaksin. When the lights went out suddenly people just lit some candles and thought nothing of it. We split more beer and hot tea and a few of the ladies in the community decided to give us Karen nicknames. I was christened “Poh Loh Eh” which means “cute flower.”

Exhausted, we had a late dinner and then slept like rocks. We were awoken by several of the young boys peeping in the windows and yelling, “Good morning, gola!” Before breakfast we visited a lady who had a few extra woven items we could buy. Each of the girls got a bag, the guy student got a shirt, and one of my friends got a long white dress that signifies being unmarried. She was a little wary about wearing it around because several women had expressed the desire for Western daughter in law! After breakfast we donned our Karen attire (some of us borrowed shirts) and went to try our hand at rice pounding.

The village uses one big lever-type mechanism to pound the shells off the grains of rice, and then wide, flat baskets to sift the grains of rice out. We weren’t very good at either activity, and it was probably a miracle that we managed to produce more rice than we dumped on the ground by accident. No one seemed to mind, though, and the morning passed quickly. We had enough time for a final lunch, and then Man’s mother performed a blessing for us. She prepared a plate of rice and a plate of the apricot biscuits, while Man told us that in lieu of the biscuits they would usually use meat of some kind, usually a freshly slaughtered chicken. I was pretty grateful that they did not feel the need to kill a chicken just for us, as I try to eat as vegetarian as much as I can. Man's mother then draped several white threads over the plates, and one by one she wrapped the thread around each of our wrists while saying the blessing, then broke off the end and threw it over our shoulders. Man translated the sentiments of the blessing as gratitude and well wishes for long and happy lives.

We gave gifts of tea and chocolate to Man’s mother, then a special ornament to the uncle who hosted us before departing on the pick-up truck. The way back to Chiang Mai was a bit shorter, although we did get stuck in some traffic. We arrived back at Uniloft sad that the weekend in the mountains was over, but so grateful for the opportunity to experience it. The “hill tribes” like the ethnic Karen have been turned into somewhat of a commodity for the tourism industry, with tour packages taking people by the busload to a few closer villages to gawk at the "natives." This visit was a far cry from that, as our main objective was to be observers and a humble presence in the village. Several people expressed how much they wished they could speak English and talk to us, and we would respond that we wished we could speak Karen!

The other thing that we heard a lot was a desire for us to return. I would love to go back and visit Mae Pah Bpoo, but I just don’t know when that will be! I really enjoyed being in Thailand and I have hopes of coming back someday, but the world is just so darn big and there are so many other places to explore. The Karen people will always have a special place in my heart and I am so glad that I took the opportunity to go out of my comfort zone in some ways, but actually return to my comfort zone in others because I am much more content in the forested mountains, up in the fresh air and dirt, than down in a large city. Guess I always be a Coloradoan at heart. 

Yee Ping Lantern Festival

Gosh, has it really been over a week since I've updated? Apologies, everyone, but in my defense it is the week before finals and I am on the leaving-Thailand countdown, so you've got to cut me some slack.

That doesn't mean I don't have a lot to say, though, because this particular post is one that I've been looking forward to writing since I decided to come to Thailand. That's right, this one is all about the floating lantern festival that enticed me to spend four months in Chiang Mai in the first place. I was finally going to get to live my dream!

We drove back from Bangkok in time for the weekend-long Loi Krathong festival, which actually is a Thailand-wide festival that is celebrated by floating little boats on a river with good wishes for the future. Yee Ping is special to Lanna, the former name of Northern Thailand centered around Chiang Mai. Yee Ping refers specifically to the release of the floating sky lanterns.

Thousands of tourists flock to Chiang Mai for this event each year, so I guess we were lucky to not have to try and find a hotel or anything! Traffic was still pretty bad in the city, though, so we arranged for a song taew to come pick us up at our building a few hours before the festivities were to start. We were headed out to a place called Mae Jo, where a temple outside of the university there was famous for the release of up to 10,000 lanterns at one time. The ceremony started at 6:00 pm we made sure to stake out our spot in the field - lanterns purchased and food cart dinners in our bellies - by 5:00 pm because there were already so many people there.

I say the ceremony started at 6:00, but the actual lantern release did not happen until 8:30. Obviously we had to wait for it to get dark for the lanterns to be most effective, but first and foremost this is a Buddhist merit-making ceremony and is done to honor Lord Buddha. Therefore there was a long ceremony beforehand where several monks processed in, we did a long meditation, and then the monks and other meditators did a circumambulation. There was a constant stream of lanterns in the sky from outside of the temple area, but those on the field were instructed to wait until the proper moment to light and release the lanterns.

I was glad that we waited because being in a sea of warm, bright lanterns for a few brief minutes and then watching the cloud lift up away from the earth and float up into the night sky was simply breathtaking. The tradition says that the lantern will take away all your woes and negativity as it rises away on a breeze, and we were also told to make a wish as we let go of the enormous lanterns. I made a big, important wish for my life. Can't tell you what it is, or it won't come true, but let's just say I won't even know if it comes true for quite some time!

My camera isn't the best so sorry for the low picture quality, but really no huge fancy camera in the whole world could truly capture the magic of the moment. I'm so happy I could see it in person. A true once-in-a-lifetime experience. I took a little video of the second lantern we released after watching the sky for a little while. As you can see, you have to let the lantern fill with hot air before releasing it.

I'm also glad I got to be there with the special friends I've made while in Thailand. It made me realize a few things that are important in life: surrounding myself with positive people and seeking out adventure whenever I get the opportunity. I would also like to express my gratitude towards everyone who has supported me along the way and who have opened the doors to adventure for me!

We thought we would "beat the crowd" and leave a couple minutes early so we could get back to our song taew driver on time, but apparently the rest of the crowd thought the exact same thing. I won't dwell too much on how hard it was to get out, let's just say that we tried to keep a positive attitude and it was a situation we can definitely laugh about in retrospect. Our song taew driver waited up for us, and we all made it back to Chiang Mai safe and sound!

Something I've been thinking about a lot lately is having incredible experiences like this so early in life. Just like in the movie Tangled, once you realize a dream you can feel a little bit disoriented and not as grounded. The amazing thing that I realized, though, is that the world is virtually infinite. There is no way that I can see everything in one lifetime, so as soon as I cross one thing off the  "bucket list" there are at least a hundred things that can fill its place. It's both encouraging and overwhelming, so I guess the best I can do is take things one adventure at a time.

Okay, that's probably enough reflection for one night! Hope you enjoyed reading about Yee Ping and the video. I have a few more ideas for posts before I leave Thailand, so, as always, stay tuned! Can't make any promises about the next time I'll be able to update, though. Schoolwork beckons . . .

Visiting Parliament

I recently teased with my family members that I have been to more government buildings in foreign countries than I have in my own, as I have also visited the Reichstag in Germany but saw the Capitol building only from a distance when on vacation in Washington D.C. The Parliament in Bangkok isn't so much a tourist attraction, but as international students it was important for us to visit in order to better understand the politics of the country we had been living in for the last three months.

Thailand transitioned from an absolute monarchy to a constitutional monarchy in the 1930s, asking the king to abdicate his power and changing the name of the country from Siam to Thailand. As a result, Thailand is still getting used to being a democracy and to put it lightly, things have been a little trial and error. There have been eighteen constitutions thus far and a great deal of pushing and pulling back and forth between leaders and ideologies as a result. We visited first with a deputy speaker of Parliament, who spoke to the importance of maintaining a neutral stance in his position in an attempt to appease all sides.

Next we met with the former prime minister of Thailand, who was very charismatic but controversial. He spoke to the importance of voters and having elected (rather than appointed) leaders so that Thailand is ideally a "by the people, for the people" nation. Objectively looking at the current political climate, however, it is obvious that there is still a ways to go on this front. Though one could argue that no country has gotten it perfect yet. I certainly could file some grievances with my own government on some issues, but ultimately experiences like these are personal for me because it reminds me to take my citizenship into my own hands and stay informed and use my vote wisely.

We were warmly welcomed by the Thai Parliament and posed for many group pictures as well as were invited to sit in on an actual meeting, although it was all in Thai. Another highlight was visiting the museum where we got to get up close and personal with the various Thai constitutions and other important original documents! I was amazed because the U.S. equivalents are carefully protected in dark rooms behind bulletproof glass with several sinister security guards around to make sure the tourists keep shuffling past. Someone pointed out that there is quite the age difference in these documents, and the Thai Parliament isn't quite as touristy as the Declaration of Independence.

Our next stop was at the Anata Samakhorn Throne Hall, which used to serve as the Parliament building before it moved to its current location (and it's planning on moving again into a newly built place). Now this throne hall is a beautiful museum with so much art given in homage to the members of the royal family. The building itself is stunning, done up in the Italian architectural style.

Again I am the victim of a "no photos allowed" rule, because the inside was absolutely incredible. The frescoes on the ceiling and the marble interior was amazing in and of themselves, but the true marvel was with the various artisans' gifts that are housed there. Thrones, palanquins, and models of royal barges were made of intricate gold  and inlaid with precious gems. I could have stared at the scenes depicted in huge wood carvings forever. Massive embroidered tapestries showed famous stories and were made with every color of the rainbow and then some. I regretted running out of time before I could truly appreciate the collections of dishes, porcelain, and smaller embroidered pieces that were housed downstairs. The Throne Hall is a definite must-see for anyone visiting Bangkok.

Our final stop was at a famous monument of a king astride his steed in front of the Throne Hall. It is placed next to a medallion, small in comparison, inlaid in the pavement as an homage to democracy. The professors summed up that it represented Thailand's politics well: the monarchy is still the most revered, and even if it no longer has as much political power over the people, it's ideological power is as strong as ever.

That basically concludes our trip to Bangkok! We stayed up late to pay an informed visit to the red light district of Bangkok, but I didn't stay long, preferring instead to hang out with friends in the hotel and swap riddles. The next day we were back on the road, doing the long haul all the way back to Chiang Mai. I was glad to have the whole weekend in front of me, and was a weekend it was, as it was time for the famous Loi Krathrong festival!

Textiles, Cultural Center, and the UN

We had a very busy next day that started early with a visit to the Jim Thompson Textile Museum. Located at his historical home, Jim Thompson is famous for having put Thailand on the map for textiles and fabric production. His home was just as innovative as his business, as it linked the traditional Thai houses together to make a larger house where one used hallways to walk from room to room without having to go outside. The whole area was beautiful and showed the fusion between the traditional Eastern styles and Western influences that are common in Thailand. I loved to see all the old art pieces, especially the intricately detailed porcelain dish collection. Another highlight was a demonstration on extracting the silk threads from the cocoons of silk worms.

We then walked over the the Bangkok Art Cultural Center, which is a multileveled modern building that caters to all needs of the art community. There are coffee and clothing shops that draw the artistic crowd, a theater for live performances and films, and large galleries for the current art exhibits. There was one that featured the use of recycled materials - I loved walking through loops of newspapers attached together and draped from ceiling to floor. There was also a really neat sculpture that was a mosaic of mirrored cubes that were so large and stacked in a way that you could walk underneath them, to see an alcove where a pile of dirt and your own image was reflected back at you a thousand times.

I loved the peace and quiet of the art museum compared to the hustle and bustle of Bangkok traffic outside. Since the food was a little pricey inside the culture center, we walked right across the street to the shopping center where we went the day before. I sprung for Subway, though, and it was great to have a little taste of home in the form of a tuna sandwich and a double chocolate chip cookie!

In the afternoon we got the special opportunity to be guests at the United Nations in Bangkok. After going through security, we got our own name badges and were escorted to a conference room to talk about the state of human trafficking in Southeast Asia with a UN representative who does field research. It was an interesting talk that really helped me understand how international policies break down to the national level and even the regional level. The image that the phrase "human trafficking" brings up is often one of women and even children being sold into slavery for sex work, but that is not really an accurate picture. The majority of trafficking cases are for the labor industry, such as fisheries, but that doesn't have the same emotional draw as "sex trafficking" so less people know about it. In reality, sex work is often the best-paying kind of work some people, often migrants, can find and so is seen as an unsavory option but an option nonetheless. 

I think the real problem is the demand for sex work from the clientele and that a true solution will only be found when we can find a way to change the culture and reduce the demand for sexual services. The criminalization should be placed on the clients, not the workers. When sex workers get busted, no one is offering viable employment to replace their jobs. Plus, as long as it's illegal, it's unregulated, which can be dangerous for all parties involved. That's why groups like Empower, an organization of sex workers in Chiang Mai, have arisen to change the way we look at the sex industry. They have even started their own bar (which I have visited) to show that they refuse to be victimized and that their employment should be legitimate, even if it is viewed as socially taboo.

As you can see, our trip to the UN gave me a lot to think about in conjunction with what we had been learning in my Institutions of Thai Society class. The remainder of our trip was just as politically focused, but I'll save that for another day and give you a little break! Until then!

Grand Palace and Wat Pho

Hello everyone! I'm sorry I haven't been updating on Bangkok more, things just got busy this week! I am off to one more adventure this afternoon - a weekend home stay and service project in a remote Karen village. Karen are an important ethnic group to the struggle in Burma, but this is a Thai Karen group. I'm really excited!

Anyway, we arrived in Bangkok late Monday night so our sightseeing didn't start until Tuesday morning, but we started off big with a tour of the Grand Palace. The current royal family doesn't really reside there much (seeing as the king and queen are quite elderly) but it was still magnificent to see.

I was particularly impressed with this golden chedi, which is a common sight in Thailand except this one was covered in a tiny gold tile mosaic from Italy.

As we continued on the tour, I saw a familiar sight in the form of a model of Angkor Wat! One of the former kings had wanted to show the prestige of the kingdom of Siam (modern day Thailand) over the neighboring Khmer kingdom in Cambodia. He wanted to go and bring Angkor Wat to Siam, which would have been expensive and difficult, so I guess he had to be satisfied with this model.

One of the main attractions of the Grand Palace is the Temple of the Emerald Buddha, which I unfortunately was not allowed to take pictures of. However, I thought that the mural surrounding the temple was equally fantastic, as it was gold-leafed and depicting scenes from the famous Hindu story of the Ramayana.

I was also impressed by the beautiful garden areas of the palace. We had a nice break here to take pictures and explore a little before heading off to another temple, Wat Pho.

Wat Pho is home to the enormous reclining Buddha, the posture he takes just before his death. It was very crowded but I managed to snap a few pictures, despite my camera battery dying a little bit!

I thought the chedis at Wat Pho were beautiful too, covered in intricate, detailed floral designs. 

After Wat Pho, we had lunch at a small restaurant on the riverside and then relaxed in a nearby park where we saw a giant prehistoric-looking lizard crawl into the water! It disappeared before I could get a picture, but it was a crazy sight to see. We had the afternoon off with the option of going to a shopping area. A couple of my friends and I went and checked out the upscale malls before doing some shopping in a maze-like area of market stalls in one of the malls. We topped it off with a pizza dinner and then headed back to the hotel to rest up for the next busy day.

Sunny Sukhothai

As we ventured further south, the tiny hints of cooler weather we experienced in Chiang Mai were pretty non-existent. Though technically we are at the end of rainy season and beginning of "winter" here, this born and bred temperate west/northwest gal just can't get over the fact that she can still wear shorts and a t-shirt and still sweat in the middle of November. Regardless, hitting up Sukhothai Historical Park was well worth it before the long van ride to Bangkok. We started early in the morning with a visit with a Sukhothai expert, who showed us all the sites we would see on a model map.

As my Thai professor said, "He is an encyclopedia on Sukhothai, but unfortunately for you, this encyclopedia is written in Thai." Our professor graciously translated, though, and we had enough background to appreciate the ancient temples. First we wandered over to a modern temple to admire the murals, some of which featured the current king of Thailand and his family participating in Buddhist community activities.

The first old Sukhothai temple we visited was the famous "Big Buddha" temple, as the Buddha image is so large they suspected that it was built first and the temple constructed around it. It is considered good luck to make a wish and then touch the downward facing pinky finger of the Buddha's enormous hand. The long, curvy fingers are a trademark of Sukhothai style and a good insight into the perceptions of beauty at the time. 

The next stop was a temple featuring a walking Buddha image, and was known as the temple of the rock bridge as that was the path you had to use to get up to this forest temple. The workout was worth seeing the large Buddha image up close and for the view from the hilltop. 

Next we headed back to the main historical area, the heart of the old city, to see the many temples there. So many large Buddha images, both walking and sitting, and dozens of chedis, the pointed structures that house important Buddhist relics. The main chedi has a distinctive lotus flower spire.

The oldest temple thought to be at Sukhothai is actually the only one that faces south instead of east and is built in the Khmer styles of Cambodia and Angkor Wat. This is indicative of the Khmer influence on the region and how the ancient kingdoms were not so isolated but interconnected. 

Our final stop was a temple that overlooked a body of water with Thai longboats on it. It was very beautiful and peaceful in this area of Sukhothai, and I thought it was a little sad that we didn't have more time to explore, but we had a tight schedule in Bangkok and so needed to get on our way!

We did not get into Bangkok until late, so we went to bed as soon as we could to be ready for a full day! If any of you keep up with international news, you may have heard that there is political unrest in Bangkok right now and our visit happened to fall in the middle of it - protests and demonstrations and the like. I can assure you that I never felt unsafe and as a school tourist group no one bothered us. I will give you more details on that in a later post, so good night for now!

Spirit Night and Sukhothai Museum

Hold on to your hats, ladies and gents, because I have a ton to update you all on! It has been a whirlwind of a week, and I imagine things are going to be pretty crazy from now on as we try to cram all our favorite things into these last four weeks left in Thailand. Not to mention finals (I'm still a student, after all). Wow. It's surreal. Anyway, the Saturday night before we left for Sukhothai and Bangkok we went over to the Chiang Mai University stadium to check out sports day and spirit night. Sort of like an American homecoming celebration, each faculty (department) competes in sports during the day and then does a school spirit performance in the evening - described to me initially as a cheer-leading-type competition. What they did went far above and beyond cheer-leading, though. Each faculty put on a multimedia performance with costumes, dancers, music, giant set pieces, chanting, choreography, and props. Each faculty did a different theme, like "Phantom of the Opera" or "Aladdin's Genie in the Lamp."

We were actually down in the field while each performance was up in the bleachers, so we sort of shuffled around in an enormous crowd for each performance. I was just blown away by the amount of time and energy put into each of the performances - there really isn't anything like it in the United States, at least not at a university level like that. It was hard to get pictures, but this should give you a general idea of what it was like.

This performance was by the Faculty of Medicine, which had up until this competition had a multi-year winning streak. Regardless, I thought each faculty did an amazing job and was so glad I went.

The next morning we left bright and early for the historical city of Sukhothai. Three of my friends and I lucked out and got a van with just two other professors and the driver in it, so we had plenty of space to read, nap, and talk to each other. We got hung up on car games and riddles, so the time passed pretty quickly. By mid-afternoon we made it to the Sukhothai museum, which gave us some background information before visiting the actual historical park the next day. It was full of interesting artifacts and gave me a better idea of how the Sukhothai kingdom fit into Thailand's history. The important thing about Sukhothai is that is existed during a time of piece so that art and architecture could flourish, leaving the awesome site for us to see today.

The entrance to the main part of the historical site was lavishly decorated in anticipation for the Loi Krathong festival the next weekend, an important Buddhist holiday. I had my own plans for Loi Krathong, as you will see in a later post, but it would have been neat to celebrate in the old city among the beautiful temples. 

It was a little late in the day to start in on visiting the actual temples, so we headed over to our hotel in the new area of Sukhothai to find an early dinner and rest up for the next day. I had an amazing raspberry Italian soda with dinner, and the proceeded to fall asleep at 6 pm (guess sitting in a van all day tuckered me out!). I needed the sleep for the adventures to come the next day!

Art and Entertainment

Hello everyone! I thought I'd update you all really quick before jetting off yet again . . . this time to the old Thai capital of Sukhothai and the current capital of Bangkok. It's a class excursion (like the Golden Triangle trip) so it will be filled with plenty of interesting learning opportunities. In addition to visiting the Historical Park in Sukhothai, we will be touring important political places in Bangkok such as the Parliament, Grand Palace, and UN. Should be fun and informative!

In the meantime, I have been keeping busy with all my classes (as a student and a teacher) but making time to relax and have fun with friends as well. I love my art class and so excited that my professor is coming with us to Bangkok to show us the arts and cultural centers. We've been doing some pretty cool projects lately, too. The week after break we turned in our "Food and Art" projects depicting how we might associate food with emotions, memories, experiences, etc. The aspect of food I chose to represent was a combination of memories from the many road trips my family took as I was growing up. We would often stop at rest areas along whatever highway we were driving on (we've been all over the US and even ventured into Canada!) and break out a picnic lunch, keeping it simple and homey with the extra touch of a tablecloth.

I constructed this scaled-down version of a picnic lunch using popsicle sticks (bought at a craft store, I didn't have to eat a bunch of popsicles all by myself!). They are inscribed with the names of the places we stopped, songs we listened to, books we read, conversations we had, or inside jokes that came up. I used a plastic bag, napkins, paint, clay, and even pencil shavings to make the rest of the spread. I have no idea how (or if) I can transport it back home somehow but it was fun to make either way.

This last week our art class took a field trip to the workshop of Ajahn Tor, a textile artist. Skilled in fashion design, dying, and all techniques of weaving, he graciously showed us around his home and work space, showing us samples of his work and then prepared dyes so we could try it out ourselves! He specializes in natural dyes, which is a very involved and labor intensive process but well worth the results. This is the smaller of the two pieces I made, the other being solid indigo with a very faint pattern that I didn't think would photograph well.

So the indigo dye is on the far right, a watered down version of the blue is in the middle, and the green on the left is made from the holy basil plant. The stripes were made from using a dye-resistant plastic string to tie up the cloth before I dyed it. It was so much fun and has kindled my interest in the fiber arts and encouraged me to consider pursuing it as a hobby back in the United States.

I've been keeping busy and having fun outside of class as well. As you all know, October 31st was Halloween, which is a novel and Western concept to this part of the world. I didn't have any plans until roughly 24 hours before Halloween when my friends and I decided to throw together some last-minute costumes and go out to one of the many Halloween parties happening all over town. I take Halloween costumes very seriously and had to brainstorm for a long time before deciding on . . . a hipster. With borrowed leggings and a bear and reindeer bro-tank, I donned a giant pair of glasses and grabbed a can with a homemade PBR label. An ironic mustache finger tattoo and another of a Perks of Being a Wallflower quote completed the look. 

Then this last Thursday two of my friends and I headed over to the Central Mall movie theater to see the latest superhero flick Thor: The Dark World. No, we did not have to see it in Thai; they had some showings in English with Thai subtitles. It was fun to walk around the mall for a while and grab some snacks before heading into the theater.

The whole hall was decorated to look like Hollywood and yes, that is a cardboard Billy Crystal looking down cheerfully at all of us. It wasn't crowded at all for opening day, and we scored some pretty sweet seats to enjoy the movie magic. I admit, I had only seen the first Thor movie once a couple years ago and really didn't remember all of it, but the sequel proved to be completely entertaining and totally worth seeing. Plenty of action with a surprising amount of humor thrown in (not to mention eye candy), it was a nice follow-up to the Avengers.

But let's be real, the true reason I went to go see it was Loki. Not even kidding. It takes someone special to upstage Chris Hemsworth, and Tom Hiddleston pulls it off. 

Okay, so I better wrap this up so I can pack for Bangkok, get ready to register for next semester's classes, and attend CMU's sports day which is supposedly a big, fun event full of school spirit. I'll update you all again next week with plenty of new tales!

Balance Your Mind, Balance Your World

After my ten days of international travel, I had about 48 hours of down time in the apartment by myself before embarking on the final part of my fall break adventure: a meditation retreat at Wat Prathat Doi Suthep. You may remember from an earlier post that it is called Wat Prathat because the relic instead the gold chedi is from the actual Buddha. Pretty cool stuff. Anyway, my friend and I caught a song taew taxi from the front gate of Chiang Mai University up the mountain. It had started to rain as we arrived, so we were eager to find the Foreign Meditation Office and check in.

After filling out some paperwork, we traipsed a little ways back down the other side of the mountain, on a footpath that wove through trees and small buildings that may have been where the monks lived. We were joined by a man from Munich who planned on staying for a full 21 day course instead of the 3 day "sampler" course that was all we had time for due to classes beginning on Monday. I went back and forth on whether or not I wished I could have stayed longer - maybe you can help me decide at the end of this post!

Our first day was a Thursday, so we got a quick tour of the meditation center facilities (3 meditation halls, 4 buildings with rooms for people to stay in, the office, and the kitchen). We bought our white meditation uniforms (very basic pants and shirt) and were instructed to change and meet back at the main hall for the opening ceremony with the teacher.

One of the most important aspects of the retreat was taking 8 precepts. These are rules that are very important to different communities of Buddhists. Lay people can take 4, novices must take 10, and full-on monks take 227! We were pretty lucky with just 8, I guess. They were:

1. Abstain from killing living things. Not hard to follow, unless of course there's a mosquito on your arm or a spider on your wall! Not allowed to smack 'em.
2. Abstain from stealing. Generally I rule I try to follow every day!
3. Abstain from sexual misconduct. Although this means abstain from unhealthy relationships to lay people, for us it meant men and women sleep in separate buildings and to keep the focus on the meditation.
4. Abstain from false speech, i.e. lying. Also easy to do since we were instructed to keep silent as much as possible to eliminate distraction, but I guess it also meant being honest with the teacher when he asked us about our meditation experiences.
5. Abstain from alcohol, drugs, smoking. This is to avoid intoxicated, unnatural states of mind.
6. Abstain from eating at the forbidden time (i.e. after noon). I got really hungry the first day or two, but by the third day I realized my body didn't need all the sugary snacks I was so fond of.
7. Abstain from singing, dancing, playing music, attending entertainment performances, wearing perfume, and using cosmetics and garlands (decorative accessories). This one was actually pretty hard, not the no jewelry and make-up part as I left them at home, but the no entertainment part. I love my iPod so not having music to listen to at night was hard, and not being allowed to read or write either was really difficult when I was feeling bored with meditation!
8. Abstain from luxurious places for sitting or sleeping, and overindulging in sleep. We were to sleep only from 10 pm to 5 am, which is enough to stay healthy, but naps were not allowed! And our beds were harder than the ones at school, which is saying something.

So what did I do all day? Let me give you a break down of the typical day at Doi Suthep. The first day was different because of our brief opening ceremony at 4 pm when we lit candles and made flower offerings to the teacher while chanting in Pali. The closing ceremony on the final day at 8 am was similar. But here's the usual schedule:

5 am: Wake up. It was still dark at this time, and I had my own alarm clock so I could roll out of bed, wash my face, and brush my teeth.

5:30 am: Dhammatalk. The dhamma is a really broad word for the Buddhist teachings. Since I'm Christian, it helped me to "translate" the dhamma as maybe "the Word" or "the Good News." The Buddhist equivalent of the Bible is called the Pali Canon. The teacher, a monk, would tell us a story, not necessarily a Buddhist one, and relate it to our daily lives with plenty of advice on how to find balance and peace of mind. He loved to talk about the progression of science from Sir Isaac Newton to Albert Einstein, and how amazing it was that we could be so globally connected these days with just the phones in our pockets. With this information overload, it becomes all the more important to know yourself and train your mind so you don't get lost!

7 am: Breakfast. Prepared by lay people, breakfast was something simple like fried rice or noodle soup. We ate in silence, being mindful of each bite as we slowly chewed and swallowed, then washed our dishes. The point was not to enjoy the meal, but to acknowledge the necessity of food for survival.

At this point I would usually go to the walking meditation hall, which had several long carpets laid out as well as plenty of cushions for sitting. The method of meditation we followed called for equal time in walking and sitting meditation - beginners like me started at 15 minutes of each at a time, but I moved up to 20 minutes by the end of the retreat. For walking meditation, you only take 10 steps at a time, then turn around and take 10 more, etc. for 15 minutes. You focus only on the act of lifting and moving your feet. I actually found it to be easier than the sitting position.

The sitting meditation is motionless, as you sit on a cushion with your legs folded (right leg on top) and your hands palms up, right hand resting on left. You focus on your breathing - rising and falling - and the act of sitting. If your thoughts wander elsewhere, you acknowledge them, then try to get back to following your breath and sitting. It was so hard for me as after just a few minutes my legs would fall asleep, my back would start to hurt, and my thoughts would be all over the place. They don't say, "Practice makes perfect" for nothing, though, because the more I meditated it did get a little easier each time.

11 am: Lunch. Much like breakfast, the food was usually rice with a couple different kinds of vegetable or soy protein dishes. The food was all vegetarian, which was perfect for me! Mindful eating, always.

Sometimes I would go to the porch of one of the sitting meditation halls and just stare out and the trees. I wasn't meditating, I was just taking a break and thinking about my life, memories, or random things. It was like the special treat I awarded myself for being disciplined about meditating in the long mornings, afternoons, and evenings.

1 pm: Report to the teacher. The monk was so friendly and animated that it wasn't intimidating. He'd ask me a couple simple questions, then give me the next step of the techniques for sitting and standing. I didn't get very advanced in the techniques, being only there for a couple days, so I finally understood why people stayed for 21 days to really dig into the methodology and to get really good at meditating. It is a skill that requires much practice and is often the path to enlightenment for Buddhists. Not being Buddhist, enlightenment wasn't my goal, just spiritual re-connection as I feel that I've been letting so many other things get in the way of that aspect of my development as a person.

Afternoons were the longest block of time for meditation, and I would stake out "my" carpet and cushions in the walking hall. Although the claims were unspoken, each person in the handful of those who used the walking hall regularly had the place where he or she liked to practice. I think it established routine and a sense of comfort and familiarity, which ultimately helped with the practice as you wouldn't be distracted by a new pattern of sunlight on the carpet or new lump in the cushion. I would do my meditation set - 15 or 20 minutes of walking followed by 15 or 20 of sitting - using my phone as a timer. Each completed round meant a 5 or 10 minute break to stretch, drink some water, or go to the bathroom. I would do this for hours. It was a little nuts.

6 pm: Chanting. Buddhists chant in Pali for many ceremonies, and the daily chanting pays respect to the Buddha, the dhamma, and the sangha (Buddhist community). There was a translation for us as well as the pronunciation in booklets, but the point was not to pray but to practice deep breathing and meditate on the tonal qualities of the chanting. The teacher assured that it would not "interrupt our religion" as Buddhism is generally pretty open-minded towards other religions (hence why I could attend the retreat in the first place). I believe that you can respect and participate in someone else's religion without spiritually compromising your own. I really appreciated the opportunity to experience such a central aspect of Thailand's culture in a personally meaningful way.

10 pm: Bedtime. After a few more rounds of meditation practice, I'd take a quick shower in the tepid-at-best water, brush my teeth, and hit the hay. Our final instructions were to do 5 minutes of laying meditation in the form of focusing on breathing and relaxing. If I wasn't already tired (from sitting around all day!) it would have been really calming. A good trick to remember for those hectic days when my mind doesn't want to go to sleep even when the rest of me does.

Our final day (Sunday) we went to the closing ceremony with the teacher where he left us with the central message of "balance your mind, balance your world." The whole point of this is mental training so that you can control your thoughts to best handle any situation life throws at you. If you achieve balance in your mind - not focusing on negativity, pointless worrying, or unproductive wandering - you can achieve balance in everything you do. People so often take so much care of the others in their lives (family, friends, coworkers) that they forget to take care of themselves. The teacher encouraged us to try to do a round a meditation every day. "I say try to do, not have to do or must do," he clarified, acknowledging that life gets busy and we can get forgetful or lazy. That's the aspect of  this experience that I took to heart: I don't have to be perfect in my practice, the main thing is that I'm trying.

I recently read on the lifestyle blog "A Beautiful Mess" that this time of year is a good time to make "4 Simple Goals" to meet before the new year. I'm taking the writers up on this challenge and making one of my goals to do something meditative (in my loose interpretation) - walking, journaling, yoga, or a sitting meditation - every day for 20 minutes. I'm hoping this will give me some more balance between classes, teaching, friends, and other Thailand experiences and make the most of my remaining six (eek!) weeks here.

Stories from Phnom Penh: Part 2

You got me: I said on my last post I was going to update tomorrow and it's obviously been a few days since "tomorrow." I have gotten more than one comment on this (sheesh, give me a break! Just kidding, thanks for keeping me honest), and so I apologize for not sticking to my word. My excuses are: one, Thursday was Halloween and so I was quite busy doing lesson planning and homework and such and also putting together a last minute costume so I could go to a Halloween party. Two, Friday was my full day of teaching and I had papers and emails to catch up during my very little downtime. Three, yesterday I needed to recuperate from aforementioned Halloween festivities (nothing too crazy, you all know me) and teaching and so I deemed a full day of Gilmore Girls and junk food was in order. But here I am now!

Okay, so on our last day in Phnom Penh we got started early with a trip to the killing field of Choeng Ek. It was located a good long tuk tuk ride outside of the city but we hired a driver for the day for a really reasonable price. He even stopped at a roadside stand to get us masks for our mouths and noses because there was a lot of construction and congestion kicking up dirt and other nasty stuff into the air. We looked a bit like we were about to scrub in to a surgery but it did the trick and mask-wearing is actually extremely common in Asia.

A little background information on the tone of the day: after the U.S. left Southeast Asia in 1975, that April a political party known as the Khmer Rouge came to power in Cambodia. Headed by the now infamous Pol Pot, the regime was founded on the principles of Cambodian nationalism and communism. Basically, Pol Pot wanted to create a agrarian utopia in which all kinds of modernization and urbanization was stamped out in favor of simple, collectivist village life. Within hours of the Khmer Rouge takeover, the capital city of Phnom Penh was emptied along with all other major cities, forcing the city people out into the country to become farmers.

The work was grueling and the people were given very little food and time for rest. Many of them didn't even know how to farm, being from the cities. However, anyone even remotely suspected of dissent was arrested and taken to prison, oftentimes along with their family members. They were tortured and forced to confess to plotting against the state, and eventually executed in killing fields such as Choeng Ek. To maintain order, every effort was made to keep these execution sites a secret from the remaining population. It wasn't until the Khmer Rouge was overthrown by the Vietnamese in 1979 and the locals discovered the mass graves that the world began to learn about the Cambodian genocide. In the end, they estimate 2 to 3 million people were killed under Pol Pot: roughly one fourth of the population.

Choeng Ek is the most comprehensively designated and preserved killing field, with a large memorial built on the site and a small museum. The most notable part of the visit was the audio walking tour, which enabled visitors to take in the killing field at their own pace and to hear firsthand accounts, background history, and other relevant stories to understand what they were looking at. All of the original buildings, such as holding areas, offices, and storage sheds had been disassembled by the Khmer Rouge, leaving the mass graves as the only evidence to the horrors that happened there. Although extensive excavation has occurred at Choeng Ek, each rainy season still turns up the buried human remains. The audio tour warned me that I might see rags or even bone fragments along the paths I walked, and I didn't believe it until I saw it with my own eyes.

As you can imagine, I wasn't too into snapping photographs of the site, but I did take a picture of the massive stupa that had been erected as a memorial and testament to the thousands who died at Choeng Ek and millions all across Cambodia.

You could actually walk into the stupa and study the shelves and shelves of human skulls that had been excavated from the mass graves nearby. In Cambodia, post mortem care is of great spiritual importance, as they believe that in order for a person's spirit to be at rest they need to be properly cremated at a temple. However, the death toll was so high it would be almost impossible to match up the remains and identify each person and see if they have any family remaining. The best that the excavation teams are able to do is sort the remains by sex and age, and display them as a somber but necessary reminder of the genocide. The tour ended with the closing sentiment that genocide happens all over the world, every day, and it will take a global effort to bring it to an end.

Our next stop was the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum back in Phnom Penh. Originally a high school, the buildings had been converted into a prison by the Khmer Rouge to house the people they suspected of plotting against the regime in some way. Totally paranoid, they would lock up and torture hundreds of people at a time before their executions. Much of the museum remained untouched since the Khmer Rouge abandoned it, but some of the rooms had been turned into exhibit halls for photographs and other information. Most striking were the countless mug shots of each prisoner, ranging from elementary age children to the elderly. I will never forget the faces that gazed back at me across the years, as they eliminated any kind of anonymity I could have projected onto the experience, making it personal and emotional.

There were rooms where rows of makeshift brick or wooden cells had been erected, and other rooms where the metal bed frames upon which people were chained and tortured still sat in the middle of the floor. It took a while to walk through the multiple buildings (all looked more or less like the one above). Since the Khmer Rouge had been replaced by a Vietnamese-run government, the regime actually held the United Nations seats for Cambodia long after its official fall, as the Vietnamese government was deemed illegitimate in the international community. Pol Pot went into hiding and eventually died. However, there has since been an ongoing tribunal for the remaining Khmer Rouge members, overseen by the current Cambodian government and the U.N. It tries the former leaders for crimes against humanity, war crimes, and genocide.

It was not the happiest way to end my time in Cambodia, but one I felt was totally necessary to understanding the country and to gain some perspective on its current state of development and the inter-connectivity with rest of Southeast Asia. The more time I spend here, the more and more I understand that no country can live in a vacuum, and that each event has ramifications far beyond the immediate or short term. It's a mindset that I want to carry with me long after I leave Thailand, which is the whole point of me being here in the first place!

We ended the day on a more upbeat note with dinner at an Italian restaurant and cupcakes for dessert with a dip in the hotel pool afterwards. I caught an early taxi to fly from Phnom Penh back to Chiang Mai via Bangkok. I got a couple days of downtime before my next adventure: a meditation retreat on Doi Suthep!

Stories from Phnom Penh: Part 1

After hanging out in Siem Reap for the two full days and three nights, we took a very crowded bus to the capital of Cambodia, Phnom Penh. We arrived pretty late in the evening, but were able to check into our hotel in the Riverfront district and go eat some tapas at a Spanish restaurant. We kept the itinerary for the next day pretty relaxed, as we were in walking distance of the National Museum and the Royal Palace. In the late morning we hit up the National Museum, which offered an extensive collection of sandstone pieces, among other things, and more insight into Khmer history.

The halls of the museum opened up onto a beautiful garden and didn't take that long to completely walk through. Then, in the afternoon, we visited the beautiful Royal Palace. Using a visitor's brochure borrowed from our hotel, I acted as tour guide, reading out the brief descriptions of each building from a map of the grounds. It featured the throne room and other more public buildings used by the royal family. 

This pavilion above hosts banquets and other large events, and faces the street on the opposite side with a huge picture of the king displayed so that it can be seen from the park plaza along the riverbank.

The palace grounds are also home to the Silver Pagoda (above), as it is colloquially known, so called because of the silver tiles that comprise the floor of the temple. It is also known for the emerald Buddha image within (sadly, no pictures allowed).

Stupas like this surrounding the temple held the remains of the famous former kings and queens (and a princess) of Cambodia. Once we were finished with the palace we wandered over to the riverside to enjoy some Dairy Queen Blizzards in the afternoon heat and walk along this pleasant path at sunset.

We had made late evening dinner reservations at Friends, another training restaurant for young people looking to gain the job skills needed to secure employment. We were glad to have made the reservation ahead of time, as with Haven, it was extremely busy. The food was incredible, though, as we each ordered different kinds of fruit smoothies (mango and passion fruit lassi for me) and four tapas dishes to share. My favorite was the zucchini and cheddar fritters.

Friends is part of a larger, Cambodian-run organization with several restaurants in Southeast Asia. Our program director must have mentioned it to most of the students looking to travel to Cambodia, as we actually ran into some of our classmates in the restaurant who were also passing through Phnom Penh!

We knew that the next day would be solemn, as we planned to tour a killing field and an interrogation prison from the days of the Khmer Rouge, a political movement responsible for a massive Cambodian genocide in the 1970s that eliminated one quarter of the population. It's not the happiest subject to blog about, but extremely important to understanding Cambodia as a country and the global implications of the events. Just a head's up, that's going to be the focus of tomorrow's post.