ChiangMaiTrek: Teaching in Northern Thailand

Trek End Game

2009-03-04T06:17:00.000-08:00

This Thai blog actually STARTS on Dec. 20, 2008; to get to the REAL start, look to the right margin of this page and click on Dec. 2008. That will get you to Dec. 20 and a full explanation of why and how we went to Thailand. Then you'll see to full story.

For all of you awaiting the next venture in my Chiangmaitrek, there's only one way to say this: I've prematurely returned to the cozy confines of Bowling Green, my wife, my family, and my friends. While not all of my goals were reached, many were and I will remember Thailand fondly.

Why an early return home? Because I realized that I am not wired for an extended stay in Chiang Mai. I take full responsibility for the struggles I created for myself...struggles that soon became overbearing.

It took two weeks without Dianne to support me to realize that I could not manage the taxing demands of transportation (I had no car or scooter), food, heat and living alone. I weighed those taxing conditions against tackling my too lofty goals and realized that I had reached my limits. Rarely have I disappointed myself and others who were depending on me; at Payap and in Chiang Mai, I needed to retreat. Sometimes one must put one's own mental and emotional health first. I did that and now sit at my MacBook looking at a frozen pond and gray skies of the American midwest winter. My life is ahead of me again, and I return to Stephen Daedalus to say that I will reach out to discover what the future holds.

I've included in picture form the five angels who made my life in Chiang Mai good: Tong, my "driver," Dr. Pearl, my department supervisor, Daeng, our condo manager, Jum, a waitress from Sakura Japanese restraurant that Dianne and I identified as our source of sustenance, and Supattra, my bgsu graduate student now working in the US Consulate in Chiang Mai. These five individuals represent my Thai friends who gave so much to me; I could add ten or more others who provided a welcoming home away from home. I salute my new friends and thank them for all I was given.

POSTSCRIPT
It's a month after after my return from Chiang Mai and I've been settling into the familiar confines of home, family, friendship and routine. My psychological state has returned to something feeling very much like normalcy, even as I still ponder how I could have been driven to leave something I had worked so hard to attain. After all, I still see Thailand as a place calling for the likes of me to come and give of myself.
Certainly, the forces that drove me home were many, but one that stands out is described by Atul Gawande in a recent New Yorker article, "Hellhole: Is Solitary Confinement Torture?" Thailand was in no way hell and Chiang Mai in no way torture but I resonated with the piece which starts with Harry Harlow's monkey experiments and ends with the psychoses suffered by prisoners dealt solitary confinement.

The picture is of my office in the MA-TESOL Department.
"Everyone's identity is socially created: it's through your relationships that you understand yourself...." Gawande makes a strong case for ending a "soul-destroying loneliness" that hostages and prisoners held in solitary confinement experience. My own friends here in the US have recounted their own loneliness in the early months of military service, or the expected homesickness with almost any kind of extended travel. One conclusion is that the ties that bind us to sanity are many and invisible, and most of them are tied to our homes, our family, friends and our past. When those ties are rent asunder, even when other and new loving linkages are provided to fill in the void, there can be a terrible emptiness, one that is filled only by the likes of a Greg Mortensen.

English Camp at Watpranonnongpheung School

2009-02-19T19:22:00.000-08:00

Math camps. Computer camps. Physics camps. Outdoors camps. Why not English camp? Hard for a farang (westerner speaking English) to get your head around. Think again. There are six billion of us on the earth. A minority of that group speaks English, fast becoming the language of choice for commerce, travel, many forms of prosperity.

Dr. Pearl's undergraduate ESL methods class for its third time traveled to a rural elementary school to spend the morning at English Camp. This wonderful invention is meant to teach children, this time fourth and sixth graders, simple English words and sentences. In the three hours I was there, I witnessed about 50 children broken down into four groups to rotate through four games.

Among the games were charades, bingo, and find the letter in the pile of strach and make a word out of the found letters. From the laughter and smiles of the children, I'd say the venture was a success.

One of my TESOL colleagues commented at lunch when I returned from Camp that the lack of teacher training for and the paucity of the actual English instruction destines most of these children to the most minimal fluency in English. This might be different in some suburban and urban schools.

I was wondering how large the English Camp idea is and googled it. Not too surprisingly, there are many all over the world suited for many different economic levels and with various personalities. One that caught my eye is called Dragonfly English Camp. Its web literature reads:

A Dragonfly English Camp package provides your students with the trip of a lifetime to one of our partner resorts and hotels. We have carefully selected Thailand’s best English Camp locations where we know that out students will be happy and well taken care of.
We have locations by the sea, in the hills and in other popular tourist destinations to choose from depending on the style of camp that you plan on running. We also cater for many levels of budget starting with the large dormitory style accommodation which anybody can enjoy ranging up to the 5* hotel style accommodation which provides your students with exceptional luxury.

LizLydiaAngelaDavidErikaMichaelChinaChicagoBurmaEnglandMinnScotland

2009-02-13T17:08:00.000-08:00

TE 812, Language in Literature, three hours a week for five weeks, six students, Fridays from 1 til 4, my first time teaching in Thailand. Buddhism is infectious in this country, wats are everywhere, and I must admit that as I prepared for this course, I was reading two paperbacks, Karma for Today's Traveler, by Phra Bhasakorn Bhavilai, with David Freyer, and The Heart of the Buddha, by Chogyam Trungpa. Both affected me deeply as I thought about teaching.

Karma is written by a Buddhist monk from Thailand who was a physics major in college, then a professional photographer, and then someone who attempted, successfully I think, to bring his own inner world together with the outer world, both based on order, cause and effect. By not starting with a belief in a God who shapes the universe, Buddhism asks us to use reason to work out an orderly system of belief and behavior. Along with The Heart of the Buddha, a more scholarly introduction to Buddhism, Karma got me thinking about how Buddhism and successful teaching / learning are connected. Here's the course purpose as I gave it to my students five weeks ago:

"Imaginative literature is language made into art and experience. We write and read literary art for delight and utility. The delight of literature is the joy of a good story, in whatever form the literature, seen as story, takes. Literature’s utility is the way it instructs us about life and enlarges our linguistic and personal fluency,our imagination and our reason. When literature works for us, it invites us to be compassionate beings open to our world.

The course will introduce us to the powers of imaginative literature (poems, stories and essays) as we apply those powers in a TESOL setting. There is no reason students learning a language cannot partake in the joys and wonders of literature, and every reason they should. I’ve seen students focus solely on ESL instruction in grammar, phonetics and vocabulary building, losing the larger picture of communication that language opens to us.

Since your instructor has never taught this course in this particular form before, it will be a growth and learning experience for all of us. Throughout the course, we will be open to self-reflection and course readjustment. The course, while very short, will succeed when it asks us to stretch our imaginations and reason, and when it reaches the highest goals of delight and enlightenment. With an equal emphasis on theory and practice, the course will empower us to be better ESL and English teachers.

Since I just mentioned enlightenment, permit me to borrow and adapt a few thoughts from the great Buddhist scholar Chogyam Trungpa. Enlightenment is the goal not only of Buddhism, but of most forms of human growth and education. Good teachers and students remove our own psychological and emotional barriers, and our obsessional attachment to habits and the things of the culture, so that we can ask the great questions of life and literature, questions that are already inside us and struggling to get out. Good teachers permit us to be open to our essential being, and to see with our fullest attention directed at the subject of study.

At its best, literature, intense feeling and thought shaped into art, invites us to combine the intellectual and rational with the intuitive and imaginative to see and experience the world clearly. When we can respond with our whole being to literature, as well as when we can create literature ourselves, we begin to open ourselves with curiosity, confidence, strength, vulnerability and a will to grow. We learn to take a chance, a risk. We learn that life is chance and risk.

By reading literature carefully and completely, we identify with what we see in the literature, and soon can become the words and images, the characters and metaphors. Such identification is a form of compassion. We discover soon that the knowledge and vicarious experience we gain from literature becomes wisdom through the compassion that guides our reading and living strategies."

Flower Festival and Carnival

2009-02-07T18:53:00.000-08:00

We had for several weeks reveled in the Chinese New Year celebrations of festivals, fireworks and special foods in Chiang Mai when the Flower Festival kicked off yesterday morning at about 8 am with 23 flower-saturated floats parading over Kaew Nawarat Bridge. Tawee Layramen, my Thai friend for Montpelier, Ohio, and his sister Seichan picked me up at seven and left us at the bridge.

There, two sets of stands held dignitaries, one for judging the floats, the other for giving welcoming speeches. Then, for the next three or more hours a parade of sights, sounds and smells moved down the street to our delight.

This Festival is held annually in February here in CM, and by the looks of it, it compares favorably to our July 4th parades. It certainly celebrated the beauties of Thailand (each float featured one or more beautiful Thai women, usually sitting below the Buddha image), with schools, companies and provinces sponsoring the floats. There were bands, dancers, acrobats, the three kings, folk music and cultural performances, and I saw only a small portion of the three day celebration.

The Flower Fest is a national event, with performers coming from all over Thailand. I can conclude only by saying it would have been far more fun if Dianne's return to the US hadn't started two days ago. But I'm pleased to report that she's home safe and sound.

Meeting Rajabhat's English Department

2009-02-01T03:38:00.001-08:00

On Wednesday, Jan. 28, Dianne and I were picked up by a Payap U. van and driver, and taken, with Dr. Pearl inside, three hours north to a luxurious four star Chiang Rai resort on the Mekong River. We arrived to breakfast and introductions to Rajabhat's English Department, about eight faculty and their chair. Our purpose was to evaluate their proposed English MA program, which we had seen in draft a week ago. The conference room held a long table around which the faculty were seated; introductions were made and we began discussion, starting with an opening salvo by Dr. Pearl (my Payap supervisor and department chair), and followed with my own two cents worth. Our critique seems to be well received; the discussion became animated at times and continued for almost three hours without break.

All this was just fine, except for one thing: The room was freezing cold. Probably in the mid 50s, and nobody said anything as the air conditioner blasted away full force. I could see that most of the faculty sat with their hands snuggled between their legs or under their thighs. After an hour, the temperature hovered in the low 50s. Nobody said anything. Actually, I was suffering less than most because before the meeting started, I made a quick escape to the hotel lobby and bought, for less that $15., a wonderful jacket made in China. Finally Dianne weied with her hands folded together and brought to her face and made a quiet retreat out of the room to contact a hotel employee. A minute later the temperature problem had been solved and the room became liveable again. I tell this little story because it's symptomatic of much of Thai life: few will speak up when there's a problem. The yellow shirts occupying the country's airports in Decemeber did it without army or police intervention. There was only one death associated with their protest, so one could say that turning the other cheek at times works.

The meeting continued amicably and smoothly even though the substance of the discussion was anything but easy. The curriculum we had seen before arriving was mostly full of linguistics courses; the Dean of Humanities, who was also present at the meeting, was himself a linguist, and most of the faculty were too. Dianne made an impassioned argument for the humanities; I spoke of the US English major at most universities as a tripod of literature, writing and language study. Pearl supported this drift and enhanced it with her own arguments, persuasive especially because she herself has advanced degrees in linguistics. When we finished the morning, the curriculum had two tracks, one in writing and literature, the other in language and linguistics. And, finally, much to Dianne's and my surprise, the English Department chairwoman handed me an envelope with a thank you letter (in Thai), and a very generous stack of Thai baht.

Sunday Walking Market

2009-02-01T00:28:00.000-08:00

The Sunday Walking Market at the Tha Phae Gate of the old town is wonderful, with great people watching, good food and hundreds of vendors all trying to sell their colorful wares. For the weary, there are also comfortable chairs and foot or head and shoulder massages. It sure beats T.J. Max or Filene's Basement. Come stroll through with us. We'll probably have to go again tonight since it's my last Sunday in Chiang Mai for awhile. And I forgot to mention, there IS a Starbucks on many, if not every, corner in Chiang Mai--at least where the tourists tend to congregate.

You can also see that selling at the market is a family affair--after, all, sweet babies and cute children could very well mean better sales.

Of course, the market is also a wonderful place for an impromptu picnic--or just the usual way many have Sunday dinner.

The place is always a shoppers' paradise. It's hard to choose just one--of anything or everything! "Madame--would you like two for a good discount?"

But there IS rest for the wicked--or at least, an inexpensive darn good massage! 60 baht for 30 minutes, less than 2 dollars.

On the way home, we could stop by a wat and purge all our capitalistic and materialistic urges for something more pure and cleansing.

The Struggle for Freedom and Democracy in Burma

2009-01-31T20:27:00.000-08:00

In the interest of safety, there will be only one picture and one person's name (besides Dianne) in this entry. We met the Academic Coordinator of the National Health and Education Committee for Burma, Thein Naing, last week at what appeared to be an upper middle class ranch house in a typical neighborhood not far from Chiang Mai University. He coordinates a small group of about 15 Burmese refugee activists working in and around Chiang Mai to bring an end to the Burmese civil war and open doors to democracy for our neighbor, an embattled and devastated Burma whose living conditions approach what Dianne and I saw in Zimbabwe last April. NHEC is an umbrella organization with major spokes here and in Burma, aimed at educating for "critical literacy" (those thinking and language skills necessary to unravel oppression and dictatorship).

For educators, critical literacy is of course Paulo Freire's term popular over the last three decades and connoting the ability to stand up for human rights.

Burma, or Myanmar, the name autocrats selected in 1989, is a country of 48 million people. One internet source of demographic information, Intute, has it that such popuation "estimates for this country take into account the effects of excess mortality due to AIDS; this can result in lower life expectancy, higher infant mortality, higher death rates, lower population growth rates, and changes in the distribution of population by age and sex than would otherwise be expected."

Dianne and I certainly claim no authority on the subject of the military subjugation of Burma over the past several decades, but two years ago we were there, in Yangon, for about a week, visiting orphanages, factories, schools and museums, enough to see that the rulers had forgotten about the people, the country's infrastructure, and any kind of government representation by the people.

Our short stay, accompanied by 600 college students and the faculty and staff of Semester at Sea, was enough to bring us close to the people, to grieve for the inhuman conditions they were bearing, and to know that we had to act in their interests wherever and whenever we could. In fact, a good part of the motivation for our trip to Thailand has been the likelihood that we would make contact with Burmese refugees and act to affect what's happening in their country.

Two things happened in the past week that drove us to meet the activists in education behind the National Health and Education Committee. By sheer chance, we wandered into a gallery of Burmese art and met one of the activists, Vice Chair of the group; he quickly realized that Dianne and I were well poised to make a contribution and invited us to "headquarters." Several days later, a student added my class at Payap; of course, as destiny would have it, she is active as a teacher for NHEC, is Burmese, and pleaded with me to help. She said her own need was math curricula, grades 1-3. (I will be meeting with a Math Education faculty member from Chiang Mai University this Tuesday to see what connections can be established.)
The work of NHEC is many faceted: teacher education, materials development and distribution here and in Burma; curriculum development. The needs for Burmese education are immense. Thein described to us a recent trip to Deli, India, where books can be very cheap. Thein and colleagues carried boxes and boxes back to Chiang Mai.
The goals right now are for primary education materials and training. Four languages are used, English, Thai, Burmese and the particular ethnic group of the student group (Hmong, Karen (the biggest), Kachin, and Shan. Besides math curricula, the activists are searching for integrated curricula, e.g. natural science, citizenship, social science and the environment.
If you think you'd like to help, let us know.

Old Friends and New

2009-01-30T17:10:00.000-08:00

We've already told you about how well Tom's former student and our friend, Supattra, has been taking care of us; she has taken us apartment hunting and out for food at wonderful restaurants. She has pointed out places to shop and made arrangements for us to see famous artists and their incredible work. Our latest adventure was visiting the house and studio of a wonderful artist: Wattana Wattanapun. He works in different media. My favorite was an acrylic on paper. His work is hard to describe but glorious combining Thai fabric motifs with the outlines of human figures "interwoven" into the fabric (that's really paint). The Thai motifs are traditional yet incredibly textured and contemporary. Like they say--you gotta be there--and actually you could if you visit his website: www.wattanapun-art.com However, you know it's still not like seeing them in person. He even knew where Ohio was since he was a visiting professor at Oberlin College (as well as at the Rhode Island School of Design and other U.S. universities).

But Tom is not the only one who has a former student living in Chiang Mai. My former high school student, Rachel, has been here off and on for the past several years. She is an engineer and is finishing up work for her PhD. And she's also the daughter of one of my former teaching colleagues. (See--Mom--she looks great--healthy and happy.) We figured that it may have been ten years since we had last seen each other. It was so much fun for me to have lunch with her and her friend, Jack, at her "current favorite place" --a small food stall with tables and the three of us had soup and a main dish for 80 Baht--a whopping $2.40. And it was truly delicious.

After lunch she took me to see her apartment--a big, really nice studio with loads of storage and a private bath--one of the nicest graduate student living pads I've ever seen. We also stopped by her gym where she has met so many people--and I met some there as well--and saw what a "web" of connections the town of Chiang Mai is. And I was properly impressed with her Thai speaking abilities (and jealous as well).

The following week, both Tom and I went to dinner with Rachel and Jack (who is truly a wonderful guy--and so protective and helpful to all of us)--and her friend, Amanda,

who is also here from Cornell working on her doctorate. Fun, smart, lively and wonderful people--we're going to be in good hands with their generation! We had another delicious meal too.

We also met and had dinner with new friends: Adam, director of International Programs and of the Thai Studies Program at Payap University and his friends, Jessica and Eva. We dined at an Italian restaurant not far from where we live--and the daughter of the owner just happens to be our landlord. There are so many interesting people here--both Thais and others from all over the world. So, cheers to friends, old and new.

Our Pad Thai: Apartment Living in Chiang Mai

2009-01-28T22:35:00.002-08:00

We are, indeed, ensconced in our new apartment in Chiang Mai--it is now over a week so that we feel as if we're really "into" city life. We're living in one of the few high rises--so far anyway-- in the city. The Embassy Condo is twelve stories high and our apartment is located on the seventh floor. On our floor there are four apartments--I'm sure ours is one of the smallest but I don't know how many total apartments there are in the building. The first floor is a reception and security area and on the second floor is a lovely swimming pool which we haven't yet tested since although the weather here is hot and humid, the pool water so far has been very very cold (and I like swimming in cold water although perhaps you might have to make that "I used to....")
Luckily there ARE elevators. Don't snicker and presume -- in Thailand we have been told that it's against the law to have an elevator in any building that has three floors or less! Not too easy for the old or disabled! And at Payap, Tom climbs three steep series of stairs to get to his office.
Our apartment is small but fairly luxurious by Thai standards. You enter through double front doors into an "L" shaped living and dining area. To one side is a very (very) small galley kitchen with two range burners (often lacking in Thai "kitchens") next to a small counter with a sink and cabinets above and below. No oven. But as I have said before, it's cheaper to go out to eat than to buy groceries and cook. Believe me, I really like this arrangement : ))
There are two good sized bedrooms and two full baths--the look is pretty modern--a bit minimalist--but not "too" for our tastes. The best thing about the apartment is the large balcony that wraps around one corner of the apartment and looks out over a green residential area and on the other side, a bit of the Mae Ping River. The BACK of the high rise is what you saw in the previous picture as it is on the river. The front of the condo faces a not so beautiful jumble of tin roofed ugly buildings, a mansion, and ugly concrete apartments. This reminds me to tell you that there are NO zoning laws at least in this city and often like much of the rest of Asia, first floors of buildings may be a business that spills out onto the sidewalks if there are any--and the upper floors are living quarters. Our road is a busy one and tuk tuks and motorcycles zoom busily by all night. There is also a neighborhood chorus of dogs that throw themselves into a concert of barkings and yips and then a refrain of *all-out* howling at least several times a night. Even I hear them.
We are also lucky because we have air conditioning AND a tv with at least several English speaking stations (CNBC, ESPN, CNN and stations that show English "B" run comedies from 10-20 years ago.) We're busy--but not watching much TV.

Wanderings

2009-01-27T06:08:00.000-08:00

Sawadee-ka! We'll show you our wanderings
in the neighborhood of the Prince Hotel, our second abode (for ten days) near the city's old town, the moat and the wall around this central town still apparent even if not quite all intact, and some other neighborhoods in our search for an apartment. Moving even with just suitcases and grocery bags is still NOT fun.

We have found gigantic food markets, with fruit, veggies,
fish, meat, flowers, eggs and tons and tons of pork rinds and noodle soup.

And of course, there's alway a wat or two or three..................
and we can't pass any of them without getting more naga pictures.

We have also found and patronized the used English bookstores. Tom is reading Guterson's (Snow Falling on Cedars) other books, including his new one, The Other. I've been reading Kate Atkinson, Scenes from a Museum, Margot Livesey, and a wonderful book, the Glass Palace by Amitav Ghosh, a kind of epic novel of three generations that takes place in India, Malaysia and Burma,

We have also found and rented an apartment so we'll show you the building with more to come later. Both the country and its people are so photogenic. So most of these photos were taken when we were just out walking, enjoying the weather and exploring all of the amazing town of Chiang Mai. Truly, you all must come to visit.

Out And About in Chiang Mai

2009-01-18T01:23:00.000-08:00

For the last few days we have been wandering around the city, getting lost. Intentionally getting lost. That, according to the sages of travel literature, is the best way to find your way. Get lost to unpin and unshackle the old, rusty and wornout ties to everything. Now that Preselect Obama will take the leap this Tuesday, I figure we can do some jumping too.

Some of the first pictures feature our friend Supattra, my graduate student of many years ago and Assistant for Diplomacy at the US Consulate just around the corner from us at the Prince Hotel. She has graciously taken us around the great city of Chiang Mai twice now. The first picture is of the three of us at a fine vegetarian restaurant called Khun Churn. The second is from Prof. Patricia Cheeseman's beautiful though still modest estate where she and her assistants make their own dyes and weave some splendid dyed fabrics into blouses, shirts and wall hangings and art. Prof. Cheesman has written one of the definitive texts on weaving in Laos and Thailand, Lao-Tai Textiles: The Textiles of Xam Nuea and Muang Phuan. Originally she was a potter--and while she still is--she said she was consumed now with Ikats and she is busy designing the beautiful weavings, working with master weaver, Viroy Nanthapoom, and also collaborating with the famous Australian artist, Jenny Kee to produce the exhibition, Woven Wisdom. She teaches at Chiang Mai University and also teaches workshops. We were lucky enough to get to meet her and to get a full tour of her studio, new gallery and workshops--and to hear about indigo and the dying process as well as see the plants growing in the fields.

We also saw the results of lots of other natural ingredient and the colors they produced: ebony seeds (that look a bit like our buckeyes) make a gray to black dye; sappan wood (roots) make a red dye; cassia tree leaves(?) make a light brown or tan dye; and a teak shoot makes a light burgundy color on cotton or silk. Yarn dyed in indigo evidently looks green right out of the dye pot but then turns blue as it airs and dries in the sun. This spring when we *have* some natural ingredients again, maybe I will get the urge to try some dying!

(We will get lost later in this blog entry.)
The picture below features Supattra's watercolors, splendidly displayed at a wonderful watering hole in CMai, where we went our second day in the city. She's very modest about them but they are really lovely--and now we've seen then hanging in two different shows--the last at a student and teacher show at the Chiang Mai Arts and Cultural Center.

We also toured the post-colonial building of Thai architecture and learned about this ancient city's history. Out front of this museum stands the Three Kings Monument--not the three kings of Western and Christian culture. These three bronze sculptures portray the three northern Lao-Thai kings important to Lanna culture. This monument has become a shrine to the locals who often leave offerings of flowers incense and candles as people here do at their spirit houses (small outdoor private altars) or at the temples.

And now for getting lost! We were not always "intentionally" lost. One morning Tom grabbed a red taxi to get to school. (Remember these are the red pick-up trucks with benches in the back.) He climbed in and there were already about six others but the driver insisted he knew where Payap University was and that he would take him there. An hour later, the taxi had dropped off some people and stopped way out in the country on some gravel driveway and told Tom he was *there.* When Tom complained he spoke to another red taxi for quite awhile and made Tom get out and go with him. The guy wanted triple the fair so Tom wouldn't go--walked away, and crossed a busy highway and finally found a taxi and driver who said he would take him--okay--but right back into town where he started. Finally Tom got a tuk tuk and reached school two hours after he started--by the way this is usually a quick 15 minute jaunt. I haven't yet told Tom that I just read a newspaper article about "farang" (foreigners) in Bangkok who got left out in the country by a red cab and robbed--and there was a whole group of them! Shhhh...don't tell.

Wats, Elephants and Umbrellas

2009-01-12T07:30:00.000-08:00

We are ensconced at the Prince Hotel for ten days—as I’ve mentioned in some of my emails to friends, it’s “interesting.” The suite we’re in is large—a large living room with four faded and somewhat grimy tapestry chairs lined up along one wall, all facing the tv—this furniture arrangement appears to be a traditional Thai one since we’ve seen it in all apartments, hotels and private homes. The kitchen, though is somewhat modern with a breakfast bar, a microwave and sink and a ¾ size refrigerator. The ceilings throughout are very high –about 18 feet. The bedrooms are large as well and each has its own bathroom. It’s not fancy but it’s very livable—and Tom is enjoying the swimming pool in the afternoons.

On Sunday we did lots of sightseeing. We hired Paul, a tuk tuk driver and the son of one of Payap’s professors. He had just recently gotten his tour guide license so we were charioted around by one who spoke both Thai and English!

Much of the following information comes from Paul’s tour—and Lonely Planet and Eye Witness traavel guides. Even though Chiang Mai is only about one ninth the size of Bankok, it has almost as many Buddhist temples called wats. Guides estimate there are at least 300 wats in and around Chiang Mai. Many that still exist today were built when this city was a major religious center from the 1200s through the 1500s. Some of the many surviving wats were changed by the Burmese to reflect their style when they ruled over the city. Yet the Lanna style still remains—many roofed gables and elaborate wood carvings, pillars and doors,

Some of you may wish to skip the next paragraph or two unless you are interested in the architectural and building features of a typical temple complex. While not all complexes have the same number of buildings, the following are the usual ones seen within a complex:

1)mondrop—a square-based building topped with either a spire or a cruciform roof—it contains an object of worship like sacred texts
2)monks’ living quarters—a series of huts, cells or a dormitory

3)a small meeting hall (sala kamparien) for lectures on holy scriptures. There might be just be one or many other minor salas for pilgrims' meeting places.
4)a library (ho trai) which is not used except to house holy scriptures
5) bot—the ordination hall which is usually one of the largest buildings; it is reserved mainly for monks—no women allowed—and is surrounded by sacred boundary stones (called bai semas)that look a bit like small tombstones. The building usually faces east ad often houses the wat’s main Buddha, Note: there are innumerable Buddha images large and small throughout the entire complex.
6) the assembly hall (wihan) another grand assembly hall that’s similar to the bot without boundary stones. It may be larger and there may be several.

7) the chedi—a solid building encasing a relic of Buddha (a pretty large reliquary!!) or the ashes of a revered king—wat complexes are built purposely surround sacred chedi.

8) the bell tower(s) called ho raking

The Thai wat complexes are all beautiful with lot of gilding, colorful murals, fearsome nagas and lots of red and gold with shiny mirrored mosaics.

Buddhas in all sizes and positions, (walking, reclining, at one with the earth, blessing, etc.) appear around every corner and in every niche and on innumerable alters. (Each day of the week has a particular Buddha in a particular pose—mine is very cool—a seated Buddha in a meditation mudra being protected by a many-headed naga overhanging his head somewhat like an umbrella.)
Often in the wat complexes you can hear monks of all ages chanting in the halls or see them going out to shop in their saffron robes. Thailand (whether you are in a wat complex or not) is a kaleidoscope of vivid colors.

With Paul we visited three important temples. The first was Wat Chiang Man, thought to be the oldest temple in the city, founded by one of Thai’s great kings—and the “founding father” of Chiang Mai, Phaya Mengrai. The temple is typical of ones that proliferate in Chiang Mai--the inside of the withan is as beautiful as its outside.
Two important but very small Buddha images, a sandstone sculpture and a white quartz one sit in a glass case in the sanctuary with massive teak pillars. The chedi is surrounded by high relief elephants and is crowned with a golden spire. The walls are covered with colorful murals that were completed in 1996 to celebrate the 700th anniversary of the city.

The second temple Wat Chedi Luang was my (D’s) favorite. Built in 1441 and now in partial ruins, it was damaged either by a 16th century earthquake or the cannon fire of King Taksin in 1775 when he recaptured the city from the Burmese. (Evidently the Thais and the Burmese took turns about every two centuries or so capturing and recapturing this area of northern Thailand.) Superstition says it should never be rebuilt because it can never be whole again and a rebuilt one would be revisited by yet another disaster.

Evidently the Japanese government and Unesco financed its restoration but they did not add a new spire to the stupa since no one knew how it originally had looked—the spire itself was rumored to be sixty feet in addition to the stupa which is even now the tallest Buddhist structure in the world. (By the way—my thanks to Carolyn Putney and Larry Silver for the instruction I received from them both on Asian art!)

And for my museum buddies, there are incredible nagas at every turn—slithering up any steps, guarding all the buildings, carved and colored and glittering everywhere in Thailand but especially at the wats. The nagas on this stupa are reconstructions (but wonderful) as are five of the six elephant sculptures on the pediment. This wat –but especially the stupa was my favorite—I think it’s as huge and awesome as any of the pyramids in Giza. There was also a building which housed a wax replica of one of the temple’s most respected teachers. This teacher encased in glass was so lifelike that it certainly rivaled figures in Madame Toussard’s museum!

Of course, all shoes must be removed before one steps into any temple building, or office—and like the Japanese, shoes are removed before going into any hotel rooms or private homes. Tom ad I are out shopping for him for more “slip on” shoes which makes life a lot easier here.

The third wat we visited is Wat Phan Tao—the only teak wat left in this city. One guidebook calls it the “unsung treasure of Chiang Mai” There are other old teak buildings that are beautiful as well. Some of the teak homes we’ve seen (only from the outside) look like multi-level tree houses with intricately carved and pierced panels and screens and staircases.
After the visits to the temples, we chugged through the city. On Sunday there is no visible difference to the bustle—and traffic-- to us-- seemed just as clogged. Paul says that some offices close on Sundays but that most shops, markets and other businesses are open. Most Thai workers only get one day off a week—whew, a six day work week—and we were told that high school students go to cram school after regular school just like the Japanese to get into a good university. Yet the people here are very laid back (at least on the surface) and always smiling. Thai people go out of their way to avoid conflicts. (Hmmm…they probably wouldn’t last long in our debate-ridden household!)

Another digression: when Tom and I walked around this area near one of the big markets we noticed lots of Chinese people—and many stores catering to the Chinese. All are getting ready for the biggest Chinese holiday—Chinese New Year which will take place on January 26 and will usher in the “year of the ox.” The Chinese are on a lunar calendar, (not our Western Gregorian one.) Babies who will be born this year are supposed to be “alert, strong leaders, demanding, stubborn, methodical, unhappy with failures yet they are supposed to make great parents, good surgeons, generals—or hair stylists!!!

The Chinese stores were the most colorful; paper lanterns and banners, shiny new Buddhas, candelabra, packets of gold leaf(to adorn Buddha figures at temples) pictures, and holiday cards and gold paper money and gift baskets and fireworks and joss sticks (incense) and saffron knit caps for monks and thousands of other items are piled higgly-piggly so the aisles are narrow and crowded.

Meanwhile we left heavy traffic and city environs behind to zoom past military complexes and cavalry grounds, with horses and mules grazing in big fields. Paul told us the military used mules for border patrol and border skirmishes because they can carry heavy loads and be trained not to spook even under artillery fire. (BTW-a mule is a cross between a male donkey and a female horse—and is sterile). We continued more slowly up steep hills for some animal sightseeing.

Our first stop was a snake farm, exhibit and show. We saw tree snakes, cobras, jumping snakes as well as some other caged, rather bedraggled looking creatures: a mongoose, an eagle, rabbits, exotic roosters and one sleepy crocodile. The show we watched had handlers kissing (really) poisonous vipers, making cobras dance and hanging a python around the neck of one of the tourists. (Note: I did this thirty years ago so opted out this time : )

Then it was on to the elephant camp—which we loved. We learned a lot about elephants: they live to an average age of 80; their pregnancies last 18 months (those poor mothers) and healthy bull elephants are on average 9 ½ feet tall. They are indeed massive creatures.

I climbed aboard one for a ride (the seat felt like one at Cedar Point with a bar that locked across me so I wouldn’t fall out ) The mahout (the handler)sits right behind or on top of the head and I, in the seat perched on the broad middle of his back took a very slow—and ponderous—journey on what seemed to me to be treacherous paths up and down the mountain side. Actually there’s a slow rocking rhythm that’s much more comfortable than the rollicking gate of a camel—and elephants don’t spit—they’re much nicer too. My mount was a young 29 year old male named Poo-Billy. No---poo billy means “grandfather”—not what you think!

Then we watched an amazing elephant show as the elephants played soccer, played harmonicas, danced and “mugged” for the audience bowing and posing and even showing us how they could build a heavy teak log wall. Pretty incredible animals. Evidently since there’s no more “building work” for elephants in Thailand, they’re all in special camps and preserves.

We were all starving by this time so we went to a “Tiger Park” and ate a late lunch while watching stunningly beautiful and powerful tigers play in a protected area right next to our dining tables.

After we made a quick trip to Bo Sang to see where all the special painted cloth and paper umbrellas are made. Since it was late we did just a tiny bit of shopping after examining the umbrellas and the process of making them and watched a couple of artisans painting their designs freehand.

We arrived home at about six in the evening—a very full day of tuk=tuking and travel and temples and tremendous Thai creatures.

RoamingThruWarorotMarketNt.BazaarWatSaenfang

2009-01-10T03:42:00.000-08:00

Before the crush of Payap work and teaching set in, Dianne and I have been sampling the sights and smells of Chiang Mai's old town. You should know that we have resettled at Prince Hotel in the old town part of Chiang Mai, the result of being forced out of Int'l House Res Hall, due in part to our own naivete and sins of omission. But disappointments have their own rewards, and we are enjoying Prince (with a wonderful swim this pm) and merchants and street foods with full abandon.

The pictures you see here are of the Warorot Market, attended mostly by local Thais, the Night Bazaar, very much a farang (foreigner) affair, and the wonderful Wat (temple) Saenfang. The wondrous flowers are from the wat!!

Tuk tuks (small gas powered wagons with passenger seats in the back) heavily populate the streets when motorbikes, scooters and cars are not whizzing by. Indeed, one takes one's life in one's hands in crossing streets. Like in Saigon and Hanoi, one must navigate a street crossing with the full assumption that drivers will steer around one.

Without venturing out into traffic and hoping for the best, one gets nowhere. Often the gas fumes themselves are enough to persuade us to just keep walking on what passes for a sidewalk.

I will let the pictures speak for themselves, with two exceptions. The first picture is of Dianne and her new friend Rose, whom D. has fed every morning after breakfast at Intl House. Please don't tell Haley. The third picture is of the Buddha himself, whom we caught crossing the street just two doors from our new hotel Prince. The Prince...the Buddha, Siddhartha himself? and which prince? Hal by chance? Something funny going on here?

Images of My First Days at Schools

2009-01-07T16:14:00.001-08:00

The images tell the story. The animated faces. The broad smiles. The looks of total puzzlement. The sheer pride.
Consider clicking on the pictures to enlarge them and then absorbing the full sensuality and ease of modern digital photography.

Here, in order, are pictures of students rehearsing for their Friday play (not in English), Parn working at the board with students on first = 1st, second = 2nd, etc., student teacher Q (Queen) working on the usages of "this" and "that" at the board, Aof writing on the white board (there were two white boards in my visits to four schools so far), TK with a supervisor, Parn working on phonics, Parn and Joy proudly posing, a student working on a picture of a bunny for vocabulary development, and TK with the principle of Ban Sanpranate School and my student friends from Payap.

This is the note I wrote to one of the students at our post observation critique: "Dear ------, It's always hard to walk into a class in the middle of the year and make intelligent comments. So, what I say here will have to be guesses, but perhaps educated guesses. So take my comments as suggestions and hunches only.

Your lesson seemed to be fun for the students after they got going on the competition to spell first, second, third, etc with the abbreviations 1st, 2nd, etc. But students may have had trouble piecing together the five parts the lesson broke down into (Reading "Oh my friend, I meet you today" together, reading the chart Phonics Fun, working on days of month 1st, 2nd, etc., playing the game/competition with writing 5th, 6th, 7th, etc., and finally the writing of the month competition).

How did the five pieces fit together? We learn languages to sort out and manage the complexities of our worlds. Meaning and a sense of our experiences are constructed when parts are combined to become wholes, and when these wholes give value to our lives. We learn language to organize and manage our lives, not for proficiency in language alone. So, phonics and vocabulary and simple sentences combine to turn into greater competencies. What we might call parts education (learning vocabulary, learning grammatical concepts, learning the difference between this and that) gains value, and student interest, when students see that the parts taken together make us stronger communicators and better adapters to our environment."
A final note: Check out our Thai blog on English Camp; it comes from the same school as the one in this entry.

The Shape of Life To Come?

2009-01-06T07:22:00.000-08:00

Three days at Payap U. in Chiang Mai and my life to come is taking gradual shape. We arrived Saturday later in the day, moved into the relatively new International House residence halll that feels like a four star hotel nestled in the hills and mountains of northern Thailand. Sunday we spent with my former student Supattra, director of public diplomacy at the US Consulate here in Chiang Mai. She treated us to a full day of house hunting (for possible rental and living), smoothies in the late pm, and dinner at the wonderful Pasta Cafe. Dianne and I were bushed by nine and ready for bed.

My professional life was outlined by my supervisor Dr. Wattanakul, Chair of MA TESOL, yesterday. It will include some or all of the following:

Teach courses in MA TESOL program, courses like Literature and Language, which starts in a week

Visit student teachers in local elementary and secondary schools (Tues. and Wed. of this week took me to four elementary schools, already!!)

Teach undergraduate literatrure courses, sadly lacking now at Payap

Provide workshops for faculty in English and TESOL teaching methodology

Supervise masters theses

Give lectures on topics importance to Payap and its faculty

Enrich the evolving development of residential learning communities at Payap

Follow Dianne's lead into study of Burma/Thai border Hill Tribe People, their challenges and their fabric arts

Monday the university treated me to the expected day of endless meetings with Human Resources (when will I get my contract?), International Affairs (is my non immigrant passport in order and how do I renew my visa?), meeting deans and the university President Dr. Pradit, an Old Testament Scholar. Dr. Pearl Wattanakul, Chair of the MA TESOL Department, was an attentive host, dropping me off and picking me up, showing my the TESOL office, my desk and the five boxes of books I sent over. I'm sure that if you ever joined a large organization, you know what such a day is like.

But with Thais, their endless kindness, smiles and patience made all that bearable and made me feel like I had acted on a solid fantasy, life in a new and strange culture, absorbing whatever I can and giving my all to anyone who's interested.

Tuesday Dr. Pearl put me, and Dianne and me in the pm, through our first "real" experience of education in and around Chiang Mai. We visited two elementary schools, Sansailuang and Preeyathip School, observing Pearl's methods students teaching fourth and sixth grade classes. One of the first things we saw were long lines of students' shoes lining hallways, protocol for students -- and most of Thailand, while at the school teachers remain fully shoed. Students also got no treats...twice during the day, teachers brought us cocoa, cookies, sandwiches and tangerines to eat while we observed the student teachers teach. Supervisors also came and went into and out of classrooms as our students taught, doors open. At one point mid class, there were at least 75 blasts in the field outside one window; morning dovers flushed as the shooting went on. I thought it was the sight of horrible animal cruelty. Turns out it was firecrackers for a local wedding.

The first school classrooms were badly overcrowded, with over 40 children in each room and a din which is still ringing in my ears. Obviously, a 19 year old female student teacher will face control and noise problems from the get go. And add to that the challenge of teaching restless, hyperactive and mostly rural and poor seven and nine year olds English, when many don't have the basics of Thai..you begin to see that problem.

I had joined Dr. Pearl on Monday afternoon to watch (and of course intrude on) her undergraduate methods class. Sixteen of her students are teaching in and around CM, and these were some of the students we saw teach. We got to sit down with four of them (I wrote down two of their names...Nattaporn Ruanpang andPunyanuch Chanrittwrong) and, as gently as possible, Dianne, Pearl and I asked them what they were expecting of their students, what succeeded and where there were "challenges." Of course I had done this for many years at BGSU and I felt both the comfort and familiarity of asking hard questions, as well as the fears that I was pushing too hard and heading them in directions that were too much my own, and not those that would work in this so new part of the world.

Arrived at Payap University Chiang Mai

2008-12-31T16:17:00.000-08:00

We are ensconsed at the Convenient Resort, so aptly named because it's close to the new Bangkok Airport, the scene of the recent sit-in and countrywide close down, after a long 30 hour travel experience that was even tolerable. We're still dizzingly tired, disoriented, yet befriended by kind Thais, and 11000 miles closer to Chiang Mai; two planes, one 12 hours, the second 7 hours in flight from Detroit to Tokyo to Bangkok. Dianne is sleeping breakfast off while I'm teaching our friendly bellhop to create his own blog. The temp is wonderfully damp and mid 70s; the flowers, mostly cannas, in this nowhere place nr the new airport are splendid; and we have two days to do nothing but see wats / temples, get massages, meet Aussies and Brits, and wander the small town and cafes, which is the wrong word because they're little more than assembled tables organized around ducks, tofu, chicken, various curries and lots of red peppers.

Spent a wonderful day on Sky Train discovering some of the wonders of Bangkok, its wats (temples), its sushi and noodles, China Town and the closed gate at the National Museum (holiday!). But we filled the last day in Bangkok with tuk-tuk rides, taxis, and trains, and a vivid sense of a huge city with a government in captivity.

But that didn't stop us. We flew to Chiang Mai this morning, and we're now comfortably housed at International House, Payap U. After being picked up at the Chiang Mai Airport by a Payap staff member, who spoke no English, we traveled abt 20 minutes north of the city to a wonderfully new and large campus, surrounded by hills and mountains, and the residence hall. We have a suite of three rooms, two bedrooms and a living room between. Before we had time to unpack, Dr. Pearl Wattanakul, my supervisor and chair of MA TESOL here, called, picked us up and took around campus, the university 38 years old but most buildings looking brand new, the res hall right next to the Law School and a mile or two away from main campus. Then it was onto Carrefour Mall where Pearl treated us to lunch (we ordered my curry chicken with noodles "not too hot" and it took a mere 12 seconds before my forehead and scalp were drenched in sweat).

Dr. Pearl outlined some of her hopes and expectations for my time here, and even gave a wink to Dianne whose expertise in arts education fit well with some goals Pearl and the U. has. She would like me to develop some new directions at Payap, for both English and TESOL, as well as to teach both grad and undergrad courses. Back in our room, I fell exhausted and overexcited into bed where sleep would not come. I have my work cut our for me. Dianne says, Tom, do you know what you got yourself into?

ChiangMaiTrek--TheEarliestOfDays

2008-12-20T07:43:00.000-08:00

The ice storm over, I'm here overlooking our yard's icy palace and thinking of Dianne's and my upcoming trip to northern Thailand. We traveled down the Mekong River a year ago with Road Scholar/Elder Hostel, into the heart of Indochina, and were deeply affected by what we saw and experienced in Thailand, Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia. We knew we had to return.

On our third day in Thailand, in the northern city of Chiang Rai, I said Thailand is the place we must spend more time in. God knows where that urge came from...I've had a year to puzzle over it. Many sources surely: the vitality of the people and the culture and the land; the need to travel, the wish to extend my working and teaching skills, the fantasy of living in a Buddhist culture, my own exhausted work in the US, my interfaith and glass journeys, come to an apparent end. The other side of this trip...my being away from wife and family for an extended period, only mitigated by the plan for both Dianne and me to commute. And of course for lots of friends to visit often.

For what may be a more palatable explanation, to some, Stephen Dedalus has been haunting me; and since literature has been such a major force in my life, I must give Stephen some space. Two passages near the end of Portrait of the Artist come to mind:

"I will try to express myself in some mode of life or art as freely as I can and as wholly as I can, using for my defence the only arms I allow myself to use--silence, exile and cunning."
And, "(Mother) prays now, she says, that I may learn in my own life and away from home and friends what the heart is and what it feels. Amen. So be it. Welcome O life! I go to encounter for the millionth time the reality of experience and to forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience of my race."

To find a way to settle in SE Asia, I started tapping my connections in Thailand, the most welcoming and hospitable of the four countries we had traveled in, and the place where we felt we could both give to and take the most from the culture. We had traveled to more than 20 countries in the last two years, on major trips with Semester at Sea through Asia and Europe, and on our own to Africa, Indochina, and Puerto Rico (the latter trip was with Paul Haas and not Dianne).

Surprisingly, after contacting an ex-graduate student of mine, Supattra, in Chiang Mai, who just happens to hold a high position in the US Consulate there, I wrote to both Chiang Mai University and Payap U. Supattra had given me names of persons in their English Departments. I had to send college and grad school transcripts, get letters of rec from key persons at BGSU, my employer for almost four decades, fill out endless forms, get clearance from the FBI, banks, and it never seemed to end til I got the email saying that I had a job. And I had other Chiang Mai contacts, including John Butt and Tawee TwLay, whom I had met on my interfaith travels. Funny how destiny works.

The job is in the MA TESOL Depertment in the Faculty of Arts at Payap U. I haven't seen my contract, but I am confident that they will treat me well. This blog will tell that story. I will be teaching a course called Language in Literature, an ESL modification of my Teaching Literature courses I taught for years at BGSU.

Dianne and I will spend a few travel recovery nights in Bangkok and then fly up to Chiang Mai. We'll be staying at the International House residence hall for a week while we look for rental housing. I look forward to telling you the rest of our story here.

After the snow and ice-capped bridge above (these open spaces one advantage of living in rural Ohio) comes a picture of the Baan Lorcha Akha Hill Tribe Village, where we spent a wonderful afternoon meeting the people last January. This village has been part of an experiment run by the Population and Community Development Association, the NGO that is helping the people to benefit from the growing tourism, not be devastated by it. We saw a village dance, metal working, weaving, rice pounding and traditional Akha games. The next picture is of an orphanage in Laos where we met the director, his aides and his wonderful students. O, see if you can find the small picture of James Joyce.

If you're blog-starved, check out Dianne's and my earlier effort based on our Semester at Sea travels in fall of 2006. Find the blog at semsea.blogspot.com

The last picture, below, is of Toledo's ESOL class I taught at the JCC. It was a short stint, about six months, but it did give me a sign, that I would like teaching English to non-native speakers and writers.