Well, it's been a cool minute since I have written anything. (That's what I'm told the kids are saying these days -- "cool minute." Read it and weep, America. We have two wars and a depression; meanwhile, children are using temperature-related adjectives and understated lengths of time to describe the passage of life.) I will now tell you what I've been up to.
Schools and universities in Bangkok have been closed for a pretty significant amount of time. Since mid-October, they have not had classes, citing the floods as the main cause. Understand, however, that most schools are not physically affected by the waters; most of them are dry. Regardless, both government schools and international schools have been closed for more than a month now. The dates of their reopening has been moved back several times. Originally, teachers and students were told school would return to session on October 31. The event was soon scheduled to the 7th of November; before long the 14th was the announced date. As of right now, schools are closed until a) November 21, or b) further notice. However, as I said, this applies to schools and universities. The school at which I work is not a normal school, however; as such, I had one day off of school.
But the classes have been scant. The Korean students I teach in the mornings took their families back to Korea to be safe from the dirty puddle swallowing the city. This has left me with between two and four hours of classes per day. I have not taken advantage of this extra free time, however.
Thursday night, November 10, I was headed to the Loi Krathong festivities in Saphan Taksin. Before I get into explanation of either of those terms, allow me to describe another Thai commercial I found simply delightful.
Close-up shot of a small hand holding a generic smart phone. A chubby thumb presses a button which sends to adjacent pictures spinning, slot-machine style, until the land on a picture of a smiling young woman and a smiling man. The shot pulls out and we see Cupid (the baby-god of love) is the owner of the smart phone. He has a flustered look on his face, but continues on his task of creating love connections through use of archaic war tools. A strange, pink arrow hits the young woman right on the heart, and she looks up, smiling and excited, filled with the beginnings of love. Moments later, Cupid fires another arrow at the gentleman. His body, being soft around the edges (I emphasize that he was merely plump and not fat) denies the arrow's attempt to impale him. The arrow bounces off the man and falls, crumbled, to the pavement. Cupid's face again shows fluster. Then the product flashes on the screen: can you guess what it is? The answer will be at the end of the post. (For those of you who are lazy and do not wish to read further, but are dying to know the answer, fear not. You do not have to simply not know, nor do you have to put up with the rest of my self-important computer scribbles. Here's a fun "hack" [that's another thing I'm given to understand the kids are saying these days]: simply skip to the end of the post!)
It occurs to me that this last description is entirely out of context and bizarrely placed if you aren't aware that I saw this advertisement on the BTS on my way to Saphan Taksin to celebrate Loi Krathong. Which leads me nicely (not choppily or annoyingly, no matter what common sense tells you) to the gist of my story.
Loi Krathong: this event takes place on the 12th full moon of the Thai calendar, which is lunar (lunar meaning relating to the moon; not to be confused with lunacy, although these words share a root word, and in fact lunacy originally referred to intermittent insanity due to the changes of the moon. Which I can dig. I mean, sometimes that dang orb just makes me mad as a March hare) and was originally observed to pay respect to the spirit of the water. Some Thais told me it was just for fun, others emphasized the symbolic actions being the sending away of bad spirits while welcoming good spirits. The word Loi means float, while a Krathong is the small floating vessel that people put to sea. There are many different types of Krathong, but my friend Cherry and I bought ones made or organic material, not because we care particularly deeply for our footprint, but because they looked cooler than the plastic ones. The Krathong were composed of lilies, banana stalks and small garnishing features. They also had two incense sticks and a candle atop them. Lighting this proved more difficult for me than I expected, but it does mean that my parents did a half decent job in raising me; I would be a pretty lousy smoker if I had that much of a struggle getting a candle lit. It was not wasted effort, though; a monk laughed at me for about ten minutes while I struggled. We launched our Krathong into the flood-swollen Chao Phraya river, which is mere steps from the Saphan Taksin BTS station. We also launched a couple of paper lanterns into the air with the other revelers on hand. It was a fun night, but the celebrations were greatly downsized this year because of the floods. The Thais love to have fun and celebrate, so it takes a lot to deter them from enjoying a big festival like Loi Krathong.
I've been lucky enough to get involved with some of the aid efforts for the flood victims in Bangkok. Unfortunately, my schedule, while fairly open, does not give me the afternoons off during weekdays, when most of the outreach is being done, so I am only able to help on the days I don't have class. We've given food to soldiers who were distributing survival packs and repairing the flood walls; several times we have had programs for children living in refugee centers in Bangkok while their homes are unlivable. Last Friday, we went to Ramkamhaeng University, two kilometers from the school and the lowest point in Bangkok, and spent some time with evacuated children. We sang songs, told stories and played games with them. A sudden and unexpected rainstorm forced us into a tight space underneath an awning. However, my friend Goi produced a bag of candy and one of the most cutthroat tournaments of rock-paper-scissors Bangkok has ever seen began. I can't even give too many details; suffice it to say that, at one point, a child had actual scissors (but for some reason didn't play them every time; if I had a built in option like that, I would have stuck to it). It was awesome, and the group of kids were so happy and friendly, despite their present circumstances. What a blessing.
I have pictures of both Loi Krathong and our outreach with the children, and hopefully I will get to putting them online soon. Right now I'm too lazy. Also, it's been a while since I wrote something that wasn't an English test.
Oh yeah, and the product was a low-fat smoothie drink. So, drink low-fat smoothie-style beverages, or Cupid's dart'll just reflect off of you. Bizarre. Also, everyone here wants to have bleached white skin. I honestly saw sunscreen that was rated like SPF 170. That's not even sunscreen at that level; that's house paint.
