Whether you are starting your first day of kindergarten or at a new job or a new life in a new country, there is always a chance you won't fit in. Let's just be real here, you could go and you could, for no apparent fault of your own, be totally and completely shunned. Maybe this could take the form of not getting shared crayons or your coworkers make their weekend plans all around your head while never actually turning to acknowledge that you might be sad and lonely and totally up for a drink. Maybe you try to ask a random person on the street in your sunniest face and best Spanish where to find the closest laundromat and you are labeled a lazy fakester to your face.
The opposite can happen too, of course. You could rule the school from day one; the other kids coloring you a rainbow paper- crown made with sparkles. You could really fix the copier on the second day, amazing your entire office and ingratiating yourself to the whole floor. Or, you could walk the streets in your best mourning gear (feeling pretty grouchy about wearing black in 106 degree heat) and your "hot and bothered scowl" (can I make HBS counterpart to RBF?) could come off as just the normal expression to wear as the member of an orphaned nation and you could get thumbs up and gestures to aforementioned clothes.
If reading between the lines isn't your strong suit, don't feel bad! Let me put it this way- I am not doing too badly in Thailand.
Someone asked me this morning what my favorite part is, and although I wrote already about my top 8 "favorite" things at the time, I had a hard time answering at first. My answer, in hindsight, was kind of lame. I think I said something about how I've never experienced a culture like this. Preconceived notions come with the traveling territory, but I guess my mental image of Thailand pre-Thailand just didn't come anywhere close to Thailand.
Like I said, lame answer. But in some respects, it implies a bigger, more comprehensive response. For example, I always try to be hyper-aware everywhere I go (literally from walking around in downtown Indianapolis to trekking through the jungles of Chiapas) making sure that I don't get stuck in any uncomfortable situation. This hasn't changed here of course, but I feel less of a need to be on edge, and it's only been 3 weeks.
I'm fully aware that in a couple weeks we could be looking back at this post as the beginning of some serious troubles. We could be saying, "WELL, Jesi. Maybe you shouldn't have gotten so cocky, so early on and then you wouldn't have gotten in such and such jam." Obviously I don't want that to happen, but what's more is I really doubt it will. For one thing, feeling comfortable is not the same as lowering my guard which I don't plan on doing. However, the ease with which I feel I can encounter and interact with Thai strangers on a day to day basis, plays a big part in my general outlook on the country and therefore my experience visiting.
Everyone smiles in Thailand. Yes, we were told that being smiled at doesn't mean that you are necessarily being ceded to or that you're even in the right, but it's just so much more pleasant dealing with people who look happy to see you (whether they are or not). This is a serious mind-control tactic, or it could be if Thais had a malicious bone in their bodies.
The other day, I was on a sawngtow and we were briefly stopped in traffic. An elderly lady from the street halted her daily routine of setting up the exterior of her nail salon, to move towards the tall truck I was riding in with a smile on her face. She waved her arms so frantically I worried that my bag had fallen off behind us, or my wardrobe had malfunctioned in some unflattering, and irresolvable way. When she got within ear shot, however, all she yelled was, "Where you from?!"
My post title references seeing a woman today pop out in the crowd of her black and white dressed countryman wearing a red shirt. I knew I was on my way to becoming a proper honorary Thai when I realized how offended I was by it. At first I think I was just miffed that I was caught being the chump in "drab" clothes when I yards of red at home begging to be worn. Then I realized, no. We were told that red was the rudest color to wear and we were told why. I wasn't only jealous of her brazen confidence to wear whatever she wanted despite everything going on around her, I was offended as a willing member of a community that frowned on that type of disregard for all this mourning business. I'm becoming a collectivist after all. Goodbye Individualistic America!
In preparation for the upcoming week of Final Exams and Final projects and camp, I went to the mall. That seems like unrelated but one thing about this course is that there is a lot of teacher-preparation, which means spending a lot of money on school supplies. We took public transportation and made it in a jiff and then, 2 hours after we got in, we left in the EXACT SAME sawngtow with the EXACT SAME driver (evident by the bumper sticker that read, "Gay"). It was bizarre, he must have taken the loop once or maybe even twice before he made his way back to us and there are probably hundreds of drivers on the route in a given day and the odds were pretty bad that we'd see the same one back to back. Just a weird little moment of the day.
While on that sawngtow though, we ran into a British ex-pat who had been living in Thailand for 7 years. His is a very common story; did international business for a number of years that led him to discover Thailand and retired and moved there and never left. It makes you wonder though...
That's all for now. Big exam next Monday- wish me luck!
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