Departments of Mysteries

Elaine: [about Newman] Maybe he's an enigma, a mystery wrapped in a riddle.

Jerry: Yeah, he's a mystery wrapped in a twinkie.

- Seinfeld       

One of the things I've noticed about Thailand is that many people just accept the life around them. From a Western perspective, this drives people crazy. Look at MH 370. That was four months of front page headlines saying that they still knew nothing. The point is-most people have trouble accepting what they don't understand. But here, that's just part of life. Here are a few of the most known unknowns.

1.   Once or twice A Day for The last few weeks, The Power Will Go out in The entire school. This sucks. Apart from it disrupting the lesson (can't use the projector, computer, sound), the room gets insanely hot with no AC or fans. The kids look like they're about to pass out. This usually lasts anywhere from 10 minutes-1 hour. Apparently this has been happening for years but no one knows why it goes out. Mystery.

      2. Occasionally I'll have a few students come really late to class. By that I mean 10 minutes left in the period. I'll ask where they came from and I'll get, "Teacha! To be Number one friend!" They are referring to the elusive "To be Number One Friend Corner."

I have no idea what this place is. The windows are tinted so you can't see in. Students can't explain to me what they do there and teachers don't know what it is either. Frankly, I'm not totally sure I want to know. Mystery.

3.   Construction in Thailand is really funny. You can't go far without seeing half-finished buildings, elevated highways, and roads. What I've heard is that many of these projects begin construction before they receive enough funding to fully complete it. So they'll build something for a few months and then stop when the money runs out. Sometimes they pick up a few months later, sometimes never. The road on the way to school had the left side repaved in January and work just started the right side this week. Mystery.

     This weekend has two Buddhist holidays wrapped around it. Friday is Asana Bucha Day and Monday is Khao Pansa Day. I've gathered that this is sort of like the Buddhist version of Thanksgiving. People return to their hometowns to be with family and pay homage to Buddha. It also makes a four-day weekend, which is pretty sweet.

I'm going way up north to Pai, which is this hippy town in the mountains. Everyone says it's super "chill" so I'll be ready for that after the 15 hour bus ride it takes to get there. Melatonin baby.

Mark

PS Almost forgot, the Fourth of July was last week. Naturally no one knew about it except for another teacher from England. He asked me to explain why it was holiday. He's got a good sense of humor.