Going where I’ve never been

…do as the Romans do. When in Thailand, don’t necessarily do all of the things that the Thais do. Especially when it comes to driving! I finally broke down and rented a scooter on Monday afternoon, although I wasn’t completely sure it was a good idea. I had no concerns over operating the machine, since I drive one in Austin, but I definitely had concerns about that left-hand-side-of-the-road thing and was downright fearful when it came to the other drivers on the road!

You can rent a motorbike pretty much anywhere in Phuket…restaurants, mini-marts, bars, massage places, laundry places, the guy walking on the side of the road. Everyone who is anyone has at least one bike sitting around just waiting to be lent to the next crazy foreigner who thinks he/she is well equipped to drive here. I saw a few bikes sitting outside of an internet café a few doors down and decided to try my luck there. The process of renting a vehicle in Thailand goes like this:

Me: How much for the motorbike?
Lady: How long? 200 baht.
Me: 3 days – 150 baht?
Lady: Okay, you wait just minute. Automatic or manual?
Me: Automatic
Lady: Yes, very easy for you! You wait.
She goes to get the keys, has me fill out a paper with my name, where I’m staying and what day I’m bringing it back. As she hands me a helmet and I get on the bike she asks “You know how drive?” I say yes and she grins, says “have fun, you pay Thursday!” and that is that.

Whole different ball game than at home! For less than 5 dollars a day (which I’ve yet to pay) and not so much as a license check, I have a vehicle and it is just assumed that I’ll come back with it in three days. Things are so easy here!

I wasn’t feeling too good about it at first, as it was right around 5:00, the roads were busy and there was no time to “get a feel” for how traffic worked. I rode one loop around our beach and decided to put it up until the chaos died down a bit. I went out again after dark, when the roads were empty, and started feeling pretty comfortable, getting the hang of which way to look for certain turns, etc. The next morning I went out once more after my run and LOVED it – the roads were empty, I could ride around the mountain with jungle on one side and a gorgeous sunrise over the ocean on the other side. I wished I’d gotten a bike weeks ago!

Now that I felt like a pro at driving on the left-hand side, it was time to tackle the issue of the other drivers. I had no intentions of going into town, I really just wanted the scooter so that I could see a few other beaches and get up the mountains a bit easier. Let me start off with a statistic that I wish I didn’t know: 200 people die every year on Phuket ALONE in motorbike accidents. It makes sense – the roads are winding, hilly and crowded, and half of the drivers are tourists that don’t know what the hell they’re doing. They try to drive in an orderly, western fashion which honestly just does not work here.

The way it works is that everyone looks at what the person in front of them is doing and then makes decisions from that. Blind spot? What’s that? Passing on a curve? Why not? Left lane? The right lane has more space! Car coming headon? They’ll move. I’m not exaggerating one bit. If a road has two lanes going each way, cars will drive right on the center, two wheels in each lane. The motorbikes will just go around them wherever they can get through, and at stoplights the cars will line up in chaotic fashion while the bikes will weave their way up the sides and through the middle to get to the front, only to be re-passed by the cars as soon as the light turns green. Sometimes markets will decide they need more space, and booths will be set up right in the middle of the lane – people can just go around them, right?

Everyone from 12 year old boys to 90 year old women are driving cars, trucks, motorbikes, bicycles, food carts, tuktuks, songtaews – if it has wheels it is fair game. I’ve seen scooters with four people on them, dogs standing on the back, cats sitting on the front, entire restaurant setups attached to the sidecar. Stray dogs are everywhere, and their favorite place to nap is right in the middle of the road. It’s so much fun to look at, not as much fun to drive in! Luckily it’s relatively tame in our immediate area (the beaches are all away from town, and it’s low season which means there are not very many people around) and I’ve come out unscathed.

I’m glad that I rented it, as it’s been fun to drive and really nice to see some other areas, but I will also be a bit relieved to take it back this afternoon. Besides, there is a certain someone who REALLY doesn’t like my riding around Phuket on motorbike, and I don’t want him to keep worrying about it. I’m off to Bangkok tomorrow where I will definitely not be touching any sort of two-wheeled vehicle!

p.s. I’ve added more photos to my flickr site, which again is where I will be putting them all from now on. In case you missed the link last time, it is

http://flickr.com/photos/26728799@N06/

Save it!

I haven’t written much about class and/or teaching, but that’s because there wasn’t a whole lot to tell in the beginning. We just completed our final week of training (I cannot believe how time flies!) which consisted entirely of “TP,” or teaching practice. It was set up pretty simply; there are 15 trainees, so they split us up into three groups of five. There were 90 lower-level students (14-15 years old) who were split into three groups of 30 and all sat through 3 classes in the mornings. In the afternoon there were 90 higher-level students (16-17 years old) that came for the same thing, but only had to sit through two classes.

What made this especially difficult for the students (and thus the teachers as well) was that not only is this their summer break, but we are all practicing the same basic model of teaching. This means that by the end, they’ve had to sit through 5 days of the same damn thing, over and over again. On top of that, Monday was a national holiday, but we are required to have 5 days of teaching practice. How is that solved? School on Saturday, of course!

I was the first one to go on Tuesday morning, and was more nervous than I’ve ever been for a new job before. Teaching is more or less performing, and I was not only put in front of 30 teenagers (we all know that they can be ruthless, and these particular ones know that I can’t speak their language!) but I also had five observers in the back, pens and pencils poised. It was a challenge because we really had no idea what their English level would be like, so the lesson was going to have to be adapted along the way.

It turned out that going first was the best thing that could have happened to me – the nervousness disappeared as soon as I got going, and the students were super attentive since everything was new for them. As the day wore on, that interested level dropped quickly! There were a couple of kids that could speak workable English, or at least understand my instructions, but for the most part it was very challenging! Just trying to get them to get up and stand in a circle at the beginning was a serious trick, as no one knew the word “circle” or had any clue what I was getting at. My art skills are going to be the best teaching tool I’ve got – I’ve drawn more this week than I have since high school art class!

The second day was a lot tougher. The kids were sufficiently bored and well aware that they were supposed to be on holiday. The girls are all great, but the boys can be little bastards! There are no problems anywhere near what you find in American classrooms, they just get very talkative and distracted, and enjoy plenty of “bathroom breaks.” Every five minutes someone else waves their hand, jumps up and says “Teacher, I go toilet now!” as they run out while their friends giggle. I managed to get through the lesson in one piece and told myself that I’ve got to figure out how to come off at least SLIGHTLY authoritative! Unfortunately a raised voice and a “stern” persona are not things that I possess…

The next two days were fantastic, as I got put with the afternoon groups who are older, speak more English and have infinitely longer attention spans! The lessons went perfectly, and I really enjoyed myself. Today (Saturday) was the final day, and we were all prepared to have it be a tough one. The plan was to just do four straight lessons in the morning and be done with it, as opposed to doing three then going to lunch. On top of that, they had both groups come, enlarging our classes to about 50 students. And then on top of THAT, it is Saturday and I was scheduled to teach the fourth and final class! I was ready for a beating, but it actually went very smoothly and the kids were fine. It was a   massive class and they were very talkative, very ready to go, but I made it as fun as I could and made sure that they knew that I knew they were tired of it.  I ended up having a good time and am feeling pretty confident about this teaching thing, especially since I’ll be with 20-year old college kids in my real job!

So anyways, about Thai schools…it really is a whole different world. Thai people are very shy, especially the kids. This is not a culture that places importance on individuality, in fact it is the exact opposite. There is definitely a safety-in-numbers mentality, and you’ll never find a student who will volunteer to speak or get in front of the class without bringing a friend along. You can’t rely on someone raising their hand to answer, you have to pick someone then coax them. They don’t like to have anyone singled out, for anything. Kids wear uniforms from preschool through university so that there is no class distinction or anything like that. At the same time, Thais are very fun-loving people and the kids are enjoyable, they laugh constantly and there is always a good vibe in the classroom. That said, English classes are very different from any of their other classes…

Thai teachers are very authoritative and classes are run lecture-style – creative freedom and participation don’t really exist in regular classes. Corporal punishment is also traditionally practiced, and while it is not used everywhere, for the most part it is still very common. Foreign (ie English) teachers cannot lay a hand on students, and a foreign language class relies on participation and lots of interactivity. Understandably, kids can get out of hand in English classes, though if a Thai teacher walks in it is INSTANT silence! I saw this phenomenon yesterday and it was unreal – literally everyone in the room shut their mouth, sat up straight and didn’t blink the second that the teacher stepped in the doorway.

Thai students also cannot fail, ever (going back to everyone being equal, no one gets singled out), so there honestly isn’t much incentive to work too hard. It’s a deeply running cultural thing, something that in one way is wonderful (everyone is so laid back, so friendly, so happy), yet is also a big problem (little to no progress in many areas of society).

I could go on and on about culture, but I’ll save that for another post. There are many contradictions here, and a major one that I’ve seen this past week regards the ladyboys. If you don’t know what a ladyboy is, it is exactly what it sounds like. Guys have to be careful in bars because a good portion of the Thai girls up for grabs (usually the most attractive ones) are NOT actually girls.

Apparently this gets going at an early age… We had at least 5 or 6 ladyboys in our classes this past week, none of them older than 16. Basically they still wear the boys’ uniform, but wear full makeup, carry purses and are extremely effeminate. They hang out with the girls and seem completely accepted by both sexes – there are no strange looks or awkwardness if you pair one up with another boy. My favorite moment of the past week was when I was playing a ‘name game’ at the beginning of a class and one of the ladyboys gave his name as “Beyonce!” Anyways, it’s so strange considering what a conservative and tradition-focused culture this is. Many, many contradictions, but again, I’ll save it for later. For right now, it’s time for a “we-finished-the-course” beer!

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