Classroom Emergency

Attention Grabber:
Have you ever seen a group of 9 year olds huddled over their desks gleefully drawing pictures of murder and mayhem? I have. Not only have I seen it, but I instructed them to do it.

Introduction, Set Up and First Digression:
Now in my lifetime I have see a lot of Asians (What? Can't I say that. Shoot, I eat rice five meals a day). There is one thing that I simply must say about Asian people. No matter what anyone tells you, they make the cutest kids. I mean these are seriously cute kids, like puppy bulldog in a pink tutu cute, like baby monkey wearing a tuxedo cute, like baby monkey in a tuxedo riding a puppy bulldog wearing a pink tutu waving a flag with a picture of a baby chicken on it cute. Well, maybe not that cute, but still. My students (I teach English in Thailand by the way) have these big brown eyes and puffy cheeks that make you understand why grandmas in movies (real life too?) are possessed by the need to pinch cheeks. I honestly believe that when Thai parents are looking at the monitor of their pea sized fetus in the doctors office, the gynaecologist whispers to them.

"Do you see that there? Yeah, that. That little flicker is your baby's heartbeat. Oh yeah and those are her cheeks and eyes."

Back to Story Fake Out and Second Digression:
Anyway these kids are cute...back to the story. Well, not quite yet, I must mention one student named "L", yes "L". Maybe it's spelled differently in Thai but that is certainly how you pronounce it. He is easily my most misbehaved student and just as easily my favorite. He is like a six year old Asian Elvis Presley mixed with a St. Bernard. Whenever, I raise my voice in an attempt to stop him from throwing his body into the wall, a harmless yet distracting behavior, he does not cower in fear. He actually has two responses. One, is to bounce rapidly on his tiptoes with his fingers pointed to the sky with his hip shaking (The Elvis allusion) . His other move is to do a very similar dance(?) but flat on his back. This move resembles a very cute seizure. But, unfortunately "L" is in grade one and grade one is not part of the story. So, lets skip ahead to the last class of the day.

Story:
The last class of the day is Health Conversation Class. It is a conversation class about health with a textbook from Singapore. The class is somewhat difficult to teach due to the fact that the textbook is 20 pages long with half of it focusing on Singapore(eg. Name seven of Singapore's crucial water reservoirs? The kids could only name three. Idiots.). The other half focuses on Menstruation, which seems age inappropriate because my students are nine years old and only one of six of them is a girl. Now that I think of it the only good thing about the book is that its made of paper. Needless to say I am constantly searching for material to teach.

On that fateful day I decided I would use a page in the book that had the students discuss Emergencies. The page had pictures and little boxes to check if it was an emergency. In one of the pictures a girl was choking and in a different one she had merely cut her finger. What we decided was that the common theme was that in an Emergency someone might die. In a non-emergency death will probably not be the outcome.

In order to have the students demonstrate their understanding of what an emergency is I asked them to draw an example of an emergency. I don't know what I was thinking or what I was imagining but I must disclose that their drawings far exceeded my expectations. I sat back for perhaps two minutes to let them work on their drawings and by the time I began to patrol the class and observe their progress I realized that I may have made a small mistake. The first drawing was of someone who had just been hit by a bus. This was the least violent of all the drawings. I realised at that moment that these children are just as inundated with violent culture as American children, maybe more. In Thailand they will blur out a cigarette or a breast but a group of zombies feeding on a screaming person is common entertainment for a family dinner.

The next drawing was of the least creative uses of a machine gun. But, the final and most horrific example of my poor choice of assignments was surprising and sad and funny all at once. At first it appeared to be a man on fire, no not the Denzel variety but really just a man who was standing in flames. I thought, OK, a little graphic perhaps but a fire is a good example of an emergency. But, before I could say, "Guacamole filled waterballoons!" I realised what had caused the fire. This students idea of an emergency was a smiling stick figure holding a remote controlled detonator that clearly had been detonated.

The moral of the story:
The moral of the story is that if you want a group of nine year olds to draw something socially acceptable then you better give them some guidelines. Otherwise they will follow your directions literally. After all, if you saw a burning three fingered stick figure with a perfectly circular torso then, despite his smile, you wouldn't need a six year old to tell you it was an emergency.

Ode to my Traffic Fighter

If your dog eats an entire wheel of cheese you should not be mad you should be impressed. If you are me and your stuck in world reknown Bangkok traffic on a Friday night you are not mad you are livid. Luckily, I had someone on my side.

Traffic in Bangkok is special because there are only six lanes painted on the highway but drivers have discovered that if you ignore the lanes you can fit between 9 and 11 lanes depending on the width of cars and the amount of knowledge each driver has about the exact specifications of their vehicle.

My driver was the finest on the road. He drove our fifteen passenger van like it was a sedan. He drove that sedan like it was a motorcyle that he drove like a small bicycle. What I mean to say is he fit this thing through some incredibly small openings. Even though he wore a Spiderman shirt he reminded me more of Bobby Fisher, seeing the traffic evolve tens of moves ahead. He knew when to relax and when to perk up. Using his horn gently but assertively he moved through the stand still with ease and when I glanced at his reflection he looked confident and even happy that he had this slight challenge facing him. I closed my eyes and meditated on how he became so skilled. In an instant the truth washed over me like a waterfall of truthiness.

In his past life he had been a bird. A traveler who was able to examine traffic patterns from the sky. A connoisseur of people congetsion he flew to Bombay, Los Angelos and Rome studying the worlds most overpopulated roads. It was when he arrived in Bangkok though that he met his true calling and the rest of his reincarnations were history. He was where he was meant to be.

I know that my subtle commentary has not even skimmed the surface of the talent which my driver possessed so let me just say this: If I had been driving by the time we got there we would still be driving.

Tiger Man

Read This in Black and White

Boarded the bus on a crisp winter day as the sun was setting on 2006. "Bangkok", I told the driver and he nodded approvingly, or disapprovingly perhaps. As I settled into my seat and looked out my window I sighed and thought to myself, "Another weekend, God only knows what this one has in store for me."
As the bus door opened on the Southern bus terminal I shuddered at the scene outside. Everything was normal. Restaurants selling cheap noodles, vendors hawking watches that were only as real as you believe they are, and me. A shadow of a man blending into the crowd like Liberace at the Republican National Convention. I met my associates there, my partners in travel, my entourage in excursion. My friends if you want to get sappy about it. But I don't.
Another bus. Everyone the same. A kareoke machine that never gets sung on and the sad lonely singer projected onto the screen alone. No one to join him in his cheesy verses that scroll along the bottom of the monitor. "A tragedy", I say under my breath. But no one hears. Another Bus.
The next morning we rise early. Drinking coffee and eating banana pancakes is the only way to get my associates to speak to eachother. Saturday, and we have business to take care of. We hail a Songtow and hop in. The Songtow is a pick-up truck with a roof and benches that face eachother. As the sun beats down and a gentle breeze blows through my hair I examine the life I chose, or rather the life that chose me.
Time to work. Some driplets of sweat form on my brow as I climb. But they don't last long. Plunging into the pool all memory of buses and crowds disapear and all I hear is the waterfall dropping the life giving liquid above my head. I swim and play seriously, intensely. This was my weekend and it was time to work.

Camping. Shooting stars. A little whiskey and a lot of laughs.

Another early morning because it's sunday and time is experience. Our songtow returns and we climb in headed for a known destination with unknown contents.
"Hand your camera to the tiger boy and never walk in front of the tiger. Keep your hand on the tiger at all times." Said the man wrapped in a orange sheet. He is barefoot and calm. Even though we have no idea who this man is the lurking beasts seem to know and that is good enough for me. It has to be. Walking slowly but surely next to this cat is a surreal feeling. His fur his soft and smooth but underneath his muscles are iron. Although he steps softly his feet land heavy on the ground under the weight of his dominent physique. He fears no man. He has been offered the chance to live with them peacefully and so far that seems to be the decision he has chosen.
The bus home. It's dark I close my eyes in an attempt to catch up on the sleep I had denied myself. Before I journey out of the concious I think briefly about the best way to blog about my weekend. "Film Noir style wouldn't work at all," I thought to myself. "It just wouldn't."

Mind your Manners

keng means strong
nam means water
nam keng means ice water
keng keng means orgasm

Fire Dancer

My First Island

Motoring across the Gulf of Thailand headed towards Koh Samet I have what I call a "What the hell am I doing in Thailand?" moment. These moments are a good thing though, not a bad thing. I left my fair city of Petchaburi eight hours earlier and after taking a van to Bangkok, meeting up with a Thai friend and bussing to Ban Phe, there we were speed-boating towards a dimly lit mound rising from the ocean. Not a bad way to start a weekend in the islands.
We opted to be dropped off at the bar that night seeing as it was midnight and after being reunited with the orientation group we had become so close to, Samet immediatly became my home away from my home away from home.
Once there we did everthing one expects to do on an average weekend: swam, tanned, kayaked, ate, drank, watched fire dancers, and practiced hand stands. Koh Samet, although filled with Farang(Westerners) really is everything it is made out to be. Perfect white sand, blue-green water as clear as a glass out of my Grammy's kitchen, and of course bungalows. I don't know why I love bungalows, I don't even really now what the defining charactoristics of a bungalow are. I think maybe it is just the way the word sounds. Bungalow...Sigh...What a tough life I lead.