Another Privilege

Last week I had a really interesting conversation with one of my Thai friends, Ton, about speaking English as a first language. The conversation started with him asking me one simple question, was thankful to be born into an English speaking family? I literally paused for 30 seconds before I answered the question. I said I have always been thankful for so many things in my life, but it has never occurred to me to be thankful for having English as a first language. He then proceeded to tell me how lucky I was to understand English because it gives me the power to travel and communicate with so many different people. I guess I had always understood that, but never really appreciated it until now.

Growing up, especially in a private school, there was always an underlying pressure to learn a foreign language. I decided to take French. I vividly remember people giving me a hard time for not taking Spanish, assuring me that in my lifetime all the street signs in America would be written in both English and Spanish. I was a fool for not learning the language that was growing so quickly in the US. Additionally, as a traveler, especially an English speaking traveler in a non-English speaking country, arrogance was always tied to speaking English and not attempting to speak the native language. I always felt it was something Americans were judged for, the reliability of using the English language. For that reason, it has legitimately never occurred to me to be something to be thankful for.

Then I looked at it from Ton’s perspective. If he wants to do anything outside of Thailand, from traveling to doing business, his native language becomes obsolete. He has to rely on a second or third language. At that point I realized just how lucky I am. I know no matter where I go in the world I will most likely run into someone who speaks at least a little English. That by no means gives me an excuse to not learn another language, especially when traveling, but I know if I ever really get stuck I can fall back on speaking English. Ton doesn’t have that luxury.

On top of that, the Thai government is now putting a huge pressure on students to learn English. They are bringing in native teachers, like us, to teach in schools across the country and they are including English language tests on all their University entrance exams. Ton told me whenever a Thai person sees a foreigner (like me) in Thailand; it is their responsibility to make me feel comfortable by speaking English. I was shocked by this statement. I told him it was 100% my responsibility to speak Thai because I am living in Thailand, but he refused to accept this. So I said if he comes to America, will I have to learn Thai to make him feel comfortable? He thought about this and then said no. He said speaking English is the most important because it is so universal, so it is language we will use everywhere.

Now as a slight disclaimer, Ton is dating Allie, who is an American teaching in Suphan right now. He is surrounded by foreigners who he wants to communicate with, giving him more incentive to learn English then many other Thai people. However, I do believe this conversation with him has brought to light, at least for me, many of the advantages of having English as a first language. I can see it now as something to be thankful for, instead of something that makes me arrogant or unwilling to learn. So now I owe Ton a huge thank you, for again making me realize just how lucky I really am.

Valentine's Day

I just wanted to write a quick post about Valentine's Day because it is a huge holiday in Thailand. Everyone, adults and children alike, seems to enjoy celebrating a day that to most Americans is merely a Hallmark holiday. Thai people 100% hold up their reputation of being so kind hearted and loving, and Valentine's Day is just an over the top, extremely enjoyable, outward expression of these characteristics.

In school in Thailand they celebrate a little bit differently. The biggest difference was that no one handed out cards. Most of the schools in Thailand are far to large to hand out cards to all your classmates, so instead they use stickers. They all buy different heart shaped stickers and stick them on the shirts of people they care about. Let me tell you, if you're ever feeling down on yourself, be a teacher in Thailand on Valentine's Day. There is already an infatuation with us because we are foreigners, but that emotion is put on turbo drive on Valentine's Day. All the students want to put a sticker on your shirt and, if you're lucky, give you a rose (real!) or chocolate. Everyone is always wishing you a happy Valentine's Day or showering you with the few words of affection they know in English...teacher we love you, teacher you're so beautiful, teacher is too cute...and so on. It really was an amazing day to be a teacher.

Here is a picture of Andrew and Me after they day was over with our stickers and roses.

After school was over I was lucky enough to spend the van ride home with my favorite Valentine. He is around 5 years old and is in our van every day we come to and from school. If the van ever gets to school before we come outside, he runs out looking for us. Here are two pictures of us enjoying what turned out to be probably one of the best Valentine's Days ever.

Culture Shock

Yesterday, for probably the first time, I experience intensive culture shock. Obviously when you move to a country that is so far away from your home you expect to encounter a culture that is very different. I came here with an open mind, ready to learn new things and take a view at life from a different angle. But this was something I never expected...

I get paid a salary monthly, all in cash. At first I didn't mind this because it meant I always had cash on me and I have safe place to store it in my apartment. But Ciana and I have been trying to save up for our travels and we realized we would rather not go around SE Asia with that much cash on us. Plus, we have started to buy plane tickets online for these travels, and we want to use our Baht, not American dollars. So we decided to open bank accounts. Our coordinator took us to the bank the school uses, and after two different trips we finally got the accounts open.

First difference between banks here and at home: if you want to get an ATM or Debit card, you have to pay for it. It was 400 Baht for us to purchase a debit card, but we figured it was worth it to be able to use it online. So we get our cards and the lady at the bank tells us the accounts are ready to go. We get home that afternoon and go to book our plane tickets to Vietnam, and Ciana's card gets denied. I figured it was probably just a time lag in setting up the account even though she said it would be ready. So I tried to buy the tickets on Sunday, and my card was denied. We are trying to buy these tickets on Air Asia, which is a very finicky website (it won't accept Bank of America) so we decide to try and book a hostel with it. Surprise surprise, it gets denied again. So yesterday we tell our coordinator and she takes us back to the bank.

We get to the bank and go straight for the ladies that were helping us last time. We tell them, through our coordinators translations, that we can't set up online banking and we our cards aren't being accepted online. This conversation probably takes 20 minutes. Our coordinator is getting confused on what the problem is and the bank lady is asking questions that I think our coordinator was finding hard to translate. She keeps telling us we need to enter the number on the back of the card (like 10 different times), and we are like WE KNOW we use online banking all the time. Then they told us we should enter our account number instead of the 16 digit card number. We were like no...it doesn't work that way. Then another lady comes up and tries to help us. She proceeds to ask us if it's a place that accepts visa...OF COURSE IT'S A PLACE THAT ACCEPTS VISA! Then she said it probably doesn't work because it's a debit card, and again we say no because we can use our American debit cards online all the time. Finally, this new lady understands that we are talking about using it on the computer (somehow she thought we were talking about a store) and goes oh no no no, while laughing, of course it doesn't work on the computer. This happened probably an hour and a half after we walked in the door.

Then the culture shock sets in. It is basically unheard of in Thai culture to buy something online. They always use cash and buy things at the store. Ciana and I were shocked. Our coordinator started asking what kind of things we buy online and how it gets to us if we don't get it in a store. She was seriously befuddled at the thought of buying something online. Who knew that something we consider so basic, so much a part of everyday life, would be so foreign to them and create so much confusion for us.

This was probably the first time I was legitimately frustrated since I've been in Thailand. We had one simply question, why doesn't it work online, and no one seemed to be able to answer that question. Eventually we realized that was just the beginning of a huge cultural schism.

We did some research when we got home about Thai banks, and it turns out we could only find ONE that says the card will work online. So now I think were going to close the bank accounts we have now and switch to this new bank. Wish us luck with this crazy endeavour!