The Hills are Alive

“At this time, the driver began to state: “Why did you stop me?” I explained to the driver that he was stopped because he was drag racing with the other Lamborgini.”

- Miami Beach Police Report for Justin Drew Bieber

Music is a pretty global thing. It’s been interesting to see what music is popular here in Thailand. While Thai music predominantly dominates the music charts, some American pop music manages to wrestle its way up the top. Pitbull is everywhere. Thank god.

American songs are very popular in karaoke as well (or as Thais like to say, “Sing a song”). The big hits are:

1.      Country Roads- John Denver

2.      Hotel California- The Eagles

3.      Zombie- The Cranberries

4.      I Will Survive- Gloria Gaynor

5.      Anything by Michael Jackson

As you can see, anything before ’94 seems to be gold.

I went to a jazz bar the other weekend to see a band play. While they were a jazz band, it didn’t stop them from covering The Beatles, Stevie Wonder, and Lynyrd Skynyrd. Their rendition of “Sweet home Alabama” was a beautiful thing. The singing, for the most part, was spot on. Since singing is so focused on the unique sound of the words, it’s easier to mimic than pronouncing the words normally. That’s probably why some of my students have trouble with certain words but can sing them perfectly.

This was pretty evident in one of my classes the other day. I was teaching past tense and wanted to play some music to get them interested. The voice of a generation, Miley Cyrus, was the perfect for this. “Wrecking Ball” is incredibly popular here. Luckily, almost the whole song is in past tense. I did a couple activities with the song that had them identify words in the past tense. Most students could sing the words very well. Yet when it came to speaking them in a conversational setting, they struggled because the inflection is different. Interesting stuff I’ll be keeping in mind for the future.

I also did the “Cha-Cha Slide” with another class to teach them directions. I always knew my Oakton Elementary School education would come in handy 15 years later. My “HANDS ON YA KNEES, HANDS ON YA KNEES!” wasn’t as nearly dynamic as Mr. Boykin’s was but I thought I did a pretty good job. 

This weekend is Chinese New Year so I’m looking to do something cool. Stay posted.

Mark

P.S. I’ve concluded that it’s a myth that my brother attends Cambridge (likewise, him writing on this blog). He has set up shop in Thailand and is running the hotel biz on Sukhumvit Road.

Somewhere sunny and 75

"Now let me welcome everyone to the wild, wild west. 

A state that's untouchable like Eliot Ness." 

- Dr. Dre, "California Love"

Last weekend I went down to the coastal town of Pattaya with some friends. The town has a pretty seedy reputation.  It's sort of like the Thai version of Las Vegas. But we all wanted to go to the beach - sacrifices had to be made.

I grabbed a bus down after work Friday. Fun travel fact: the cab from the bus station to the hostel cost more than my bus ticket to get to Pattaya. Due to travel delays I ended up being the last one to get to the hostel. The owner enthusiastically told me that since I was the last to arrive, I would have to be the first die. Funny guy. This set the stage for a very promising weekend. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4d5_lrn9v-g

Pattaya is a very interesting place. There were a few odd details that set it apart from other cities I’ve visited in Thailand. First, there are hardly any Thai people there. The city is completely filled with expats. The only Thais I really saw were the ones who owned or worked in some sort of business.

The other really weird thing was that this place is packed with Russians. The amount of Russians far outweighed any other nationality there. Most restaurants had their signs and menus in Russian – sometimes not even having English at all. Not very helpful if you don’t speak either language.

Saturday we laid out on the beach all day. This was great. I hadn’t been to the beach in forever and it was nice just to relax in the sun for the day.

We also found a Thai man to take us on his banana boat for a little while. This is a giant inner tube that holds up to 6 people. The boat drags us around and it’s basically like tubing (Crystal Lake, what up). It was pretty fun and I got a good taste of the ocean when he would whip us off during the sharp turns. Sea salt is much better in sea salt and vinegar chips.

In case you weren't sure, this wasn't us

At night we checked out some of the bars and clubs in the downtown. This areas were still completely filled with Russians as well. The nightlife was similar to most places in Thailand but we didn't really venture into the rougher parts (don't worry mom and dad).  All in all, it was a good weekend trip to see a different side of Thailand.

On the school front, midterms are over and the home stretch of the semester has begun. There are only five more weeks until finals, which is pretty wild. After that, it's a two and half month break. My Netflix que can hardly wait.

Chinese New Year is in two weeks. I’m looking to relax this weekend before traveling somewhere for that. It will be the second new year I've had in Thailand, so I'm getting pretty stocked. Bangkok is also shut down right now. This makes the second government shutdown I've seen over the past three months. Two new years, two shutdowns. The world is a pretty wild place.

Mark

First of the Year

"From there to here, from here to there, funny things are everywhere!"

-Dr. Seuss, One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish

Sup ya’ll. This how 2014 kicked off in Nakhon Pathom.

Till’ the Brink of Dawn

Last Tuesday night after working out, I walked over to Tesco Lotus to grab dinner. As I approached the store, I noticed EDM blasting and spotlights shooting off the roof. This doesn’t normally happen. I walked up the ramp and saw a huge party going on. There was band playing on stage and young Thais in costumes drinking out of fancy glasses.

I tried seeing if I could get in but they were taking tickets at the door. Some great stares followed me, as a white guy still sweating and wearing workout clothes looked very out of place. On my way down I passed some girls entering in Playboy Bunny costumes. I was severely underdressed.

Luckily my apartment is very close by, so I could hear Pitbull blasting all night. The music finally cut out around 1 AM. Apparently sound ordinances aren’t a thing here.

Born in the USA

As of last Wednesday, I have been in Thailand for 90 days. Wow! That’s a quarter of a year. And while I do love it here, it never quite is America. Luckily the internet exists so I’ve been able to keep up with what’s going on. Well, at least here’s what I think is going on in America.

1.      In a world where half the population is on facebook, we somehow had trouble launching a website called healthcare.gov.

2.      The Bears blew it again. Peyton Manning rocks. Gronk is still Gronk.

3.      More people seemed upset about the death of Paul Walker than Nelson Mandela. That isn’t to poke fun at either of their deaths; I just noticed more coverage on Paul Walker.

4.      Chicago looks like the set of Hoth in The Empire Strikes Back.

5.      As of last week, Chris Christie probably won’t be president in 2016.

6.      The best way to gauge public opinion of homosexuality is through Duck Dynasty.

7.      Colorado is selling weed. That’s chill.

8.      It seems that most people who don’t want to go to work on Monday/are hungover will facebook or tweet something along the lines of “On the struggle bus” or “The struggle is real.” I’m dismayed that so many people are struggling since I left. I have also yet to see anyone post, “The struggle is fake,” so I’m assuming that thess struggles are real everywhere.

9.      About half of all internet articles posted are now composed in lists. It drives me crazy. Why does every blog or article need to have a list? Can we not communicate if things aren’t in list form? People are stupid.

Boys will be boys

There are no substitute teachers at my school. When a teacher is absent, the other teachers cover their classes. This generally works out because most teachers will have a few free periods a day, so we can spread the load amongst ourselves. This day I was covering an eighth grade class.

I played a game with them called anagramania. The game is pretty simple. The class is divided into two teams. In this case, the class naturally segregated themselves into boys and girls (bless their hearts!). They came up with unique team names too, with “The girls,” and “The guys,” respectively.

A student from each team would come up to the board. I would write a big word and the students would have to come up with as many anagrams of the word as they could in two minutes.

What happened next was beautiful. The kids went nuts. Some ran up to the board, yelling words to the student with the chalk. Others grabbed posterboards to shield their words from the other team so they couldn’t copy. They were completely absorbed in this game and earnestly wanted to come up with as many English words as they could. It was pretty cool to see kids so eager to learn and having fun. #blessed

This weekend was full of grading and getting ready for midterms next week. Not too bummed about having a chill weekend, it’ll help me save money for traveling later. Another plus was that it allowed me to watch the entire first season of Hannibal. It’s a great show about Hannibal Lector that takes place before Silence of the Lambs. However it made me want to question any meat I eat from here on out. That probably isn’t good because I question most meat here anyway.

Mark

Went to Chiang Mai, saw tigers and stuff

“I work them long nights, long nights to get a pay day

Finally got paid, now I need shade and vacay.” – Big Sean, “Mercy”

I had a couple days off for New Years, so some friends and I headed up to Chiang Mai in northern Thailand. The city puts on several shows and events for the holidays, so it seemed like the place to be.

Our plan was to take an overnight bus on Saturday night. The Bangkok Bus Terminal was absolute bedlam. There were people sitting all over the place outside the station and there was hardly walking room inside the station. All the buses were delayed and redirected to different platforms. There were a few poor workers who were trying to coordinatet literally everyone to their respective buses. They would stand on a stage, read a ticket, bark out where to go, and move on to the next one. It was complete chaos. After getting put on the wrong bus initially, we made it to the right one. 12 hours later we awoke in Chiang Mai around 9 AM.

Chiang Mai is an absolutely beautiful city. It’s full of windy streets with lush trees sprinkled throughout. It’s not as congested and Bangkok and has more foreign travelers and families. It’s like Chicago, mixed with LA, mixed with Evanston. I’m pretty down with all three of those. Another unique part of the city are the red Song-Taws. These function like regular cabs and will take you anywhere in the city for a cheap price. It was nice to have inexpensive transportation after being around Bangkok cabs which can get pricey.

Our first stop was the Tiger Kingdom. As you may guess, you can see and pet tigers here. You have to sign a waiver before you get in the cage but the tigers are all very mellow and lazy. There’s an ongoing debate about whether the tigers are drugged or not. The park says they aren’t but I just don’t get how you can let people hang out with wild tigers. Haven't they eaten people before? Regardless, being around tigers was one of the coolest things I’ve ever done.

The next destination was the crocodile show. The trainer goes into the “ring” with them and then it gets crazy. The pictures speak a lot better than words.

The crocodile guy convinced me to sit on one. It wasn’t really scared until I stood up and realized that I was, in fact, above a crocodile. But I got out with all limbs attached. God is good.

We saw some monkeys do tricks after that. They did pushups, shot basketballs, and smashed coconuts. It was pretty neat but they were on leashes, which struck me as very depressing.

Chiang Mai has some great nightlife as well. It’s sort of like a Thai college town with good variety of restaurants, bars, and clubs. Each night there were free concerts put on by the city. Adjacent to the main concert stage was a plaza littered with vendors and merchants. The next day we just wandered around the city for a couple hours. Here are a couple pics.

See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.

We later looked at a guidebook for the top places to see within the city. Funnily enough we saw 6 out of the 10 unintentionally. Nice!

The last day we went to Doi Suthep, a mountain that has the second highest peak in Thailand. A 304 step staircase leads up to the temple at the top. At the summit, Buddhists worship and give offerings. I even got blessed by a monk. He said some words in Thai, and then, “Happy happy happy new year, lucky, lucky, happy new year.” Awesome.

New year’s eve was pretty fun. The bars were packed and lanterns were sent into the sky. Coming back our bus was naturally delayed by 4 hours. On the plus side, the bus had great leg room, free cookies, blankets, and a viewing of White House Down with English subtitles. Those VIP buses sure are fancy.

And that was Chiang Mai. There are still so many things I didn’t get to do there, so I’m planning to go back at some point. Can't leave my new tiger friends hanging. 

Mark