Exploring Thai Cultural Practices

Picture: Buddhist statue in Buriram left by Kamer empire as far back as the 12 century.

Part of the Peace Corps experience is about having a cultural exchange—both sharing our culture and exploring the Thai culture. Since Buddhism has a long history in Thailand and plays a significant role in Thai culture, I have been discovering various traits of it along the way.

Buddhism is prevalent here in Thailand with a long history of Buddhist influence and a many Thais currently observe Buddhist practices. Although, there are also other religions observed such as Christianity and Islam. Thailand also has a history of influence by Hinduism via merchants and travelers from India who spread their belief system and left remnants of influence—such as animist belief and the symbol of the elephant as a deity figure. I find the history of Thailand—especially of influences that have contributed to current cultural practices to be extremely interesting. History helps fill in the gaps of and answer many question about why things are they way they are.

Along with studying the history, I have also done some ‘participant-observations’ (here comes my Anthropology background) with my family and in the community. A couple weeks ago, I was having a span of bad luck with my phone getting stolen and having knee problems, so my Thai ajan suggested that in Buddhism sometimes they say if you have had bad luck you should go to the wat (Buddhist temple) or to visit some monks and make merit. Making merit is harder to explain than it is to do. It’s hard to convey the exact significance of it since you can’t see an example. It is basically going to a monk or a group of them and offering up something to give them (usually food) and after they receive it they chant a prayer for you. My personal interpretation is that the act of making merit in itself is supposed to be humbling, showing revere for the course of life, making an offering out of free will with out expecting anything; yet; receiving a blessing in return. Though, those are merely my observable interpretations—to be taken for what they are.

I have learned from Thai friends that (in conjunction with Buddhist beliefs) many Eastern cultures consider time more spatially. Meaning time in conjunction with the long-term that is closely tied to nature and astronomical processes rather than something that needs to be beat or managed—like certain Western views of time. This mainframe emulates through lifestyles and use of personal time. People do not necessarily make rigid plans to accomplish things in life rather, they decide the ‘naturally’ right time for things to be done. For instance, there are astrologically determined bad and good days as well as times of the year. Plans for important events such as traveling could be postponed then, depending on the day or hour.
Did you know that Thailand also has a yearly calendar that is different from the Western calendar? This is because Thailand also follows the Buddhist calendar. This calendar follows in accordance with the number of years since the Buddha was enlightened. It is actually the year 2052 in Thailand and it will be 2053 on April 13.

There are certain parts of Buddhism I feel that has become instinctive in the culture. Like in Buddhism and in Thai culture, compassion, patience, and generosity run deep and people will often give altruistically. For example, I am often overwhelmed by the generosity and compassion my host family has shown me. I know they go above and beyond giving what they are compensated for and they do for me more than I myself can give gratitude for. For instance, when I first arrived here, my host brother moved out of his room so I could move in, they bought me a brand-new clothes dresser, and my host brother actually made me a desk. They also have made an ever-so welcoming place for me at their table for every meal and every in-between gathering. My attempts to reciprocate are meager at best. It is hard to even say how grateful I am with limited language—though I have gotten better. Most days I try to bring home small tokens of gratitude such as cookies, packets of coffee, extra laundry detergent—anything I think of that the family might want or need. Mostly, being so immersed in the spirit of compassion and consideration has made me more cognizant of these characteristics in myself.

Picture: Making a merit during a Buddhist holiday ceremony of the first full moon of the year.

Building Community Relationships

Being as hot as it has been lately, I’ve asked my family and some local farmers about the heat as it pertains to the normal climate this time of year. I have had some good opportunities to talk to many local farmers and field workers with my Thai ajan—as this is part of CBOD IRBing (intentional relationship building). When we did a transect walk with a local villager guide, the idea was to walk across an area of the community that the guide deemed to be important and have them explain to us the landscape, history, climate, important places, etc. Later, we drew a map of the transect walk and included the different landscapes and important points brought to our attention. This is just one example of the many activities we have done with the community in order to assess the status quo and community needs in addition to building relationships.

Through conducting interviews, and conversing with various community members, it is apparent that the weather is currently very unfavorable. Everyone says this season is significantly hotter than it has been in years past. Some say it is hotter than it has ever been. Actually, for the central region (where I currently reside) there should be a decent amount of rainfall this time of year. These intermittent periods of drought have negatively affected the local farmers and their ability to grow and yield profitable crops. Unless a farm is located nearby a river or stream, irrigation possibilities are limited. Therefore, certain crops previously scheduled for planting, are being forgone because the soil is so dry.

In this area, the crops primarily consist of, corn, sugarcane, kassava (a root used to make starch preservatives and flour), tobacco, rice, and fruits (including: pineapple, coconut, mangos, dragon fruit, rose apples, tamarind, bananas, oranges, papaya, mangosteen, durian, jackfruit, and grapes). The demand, especially for cassava and corn has declined since the last harvest season and the negative effects of this are felt among many farmers. Stagnations in the global economy and commodity prices only exacerbate the current status in crop production. For instance, this past season corn and cassava production in the area has over-exceeded demand. What is more, the global decline in prices in addition to governmental subsidy cuts has lead to a freeze in production. Literally, fields of cassava stand ready to be harvested for next year because there simply is no place to sell them for a decent price—to sufficiently cover the cost of harvesting and labor. It is worth more to leave the crops to be sold as a second year commodity when prices have potential to be more appealing. Often times farmers will not outright say their crop production is hurting but rather speak of economic hard times in general, poor weather conditions, and having to depend more on their savings than anticipated income not yet received.

As a person new to the area and not fluent in Thai, I probably would not have been able to pick up on these current issues and how they are deeply embedded in the community without the help of my Thai ajan. Being fluent and able to perceive feelings through dialog—she is ever so helpful when trying to get to know the community. Soon enough though, we will take our training wheels off and be on our own at different sites! Slowly, I am becoming more acclimated to the high-context Thai culture. Unlike in America, people do not show on their faces or talk about the burdens they carry with them. Thus, I must learn to detect subtle cues within context, body language, eye contact, voice, and gestures if I am to really understand how to ‘read’ people and act accordingly.

Family Get-Away at the "Naam-Tok"

This past Sunday, I enjoyed a wonderful and relaxing time at a nearby waterfall (naam-tok in Thai). As the days get hotter and longer, visiting waterfalls, ponds, pools, and rivers becomes a popular pastime. We headed from home around 10 AM and arrived at the waterfall at 11 AM. I was happy to have one of my fellow volunteers and her family join us. Our families had coordinated the trip so well; they immediately set up camp right next to the waterfall. I must say I was quite impressed with how well they had the whole thing organized. We had a large picnic complete with som thom (papaya salad), kao niao (sticky rice), and an assortment of fried meats. In the late afternoon when the lull set in, we replenished our spirits with ice cream, of course. For at time or two our cares were carried away by the serenely streaming waters and sound of giggling children wading in the water. The timing for this was so perfectly aligned with my need to ‘get away’ as well. I know my friend appreciated the trip too.

Going to Isan

Sawatdee-ka tuk kon! Hello Everyone!

PST has been exceptionally exciting lately with many events coming up. It is hard to believe the end of training is very near. Even harder to believe is that we have been here six weeks already and swear-in is only 4 weeks away. Our Thai ajan often says that we have so much intensive training that we should get a Master's Degree by the end of PST. I can vouch for that.

On my video I mentioned about working on graduate school homework. I am actually a Peace Corps Master's International student and on the tail end of completing my Master's of Public Administration in International Management. Right now, I am completing directed studies in Spanish (yes, another language besides Thai) and Advanced topics in Development. Later on, I will complete a development project management portfolio that is equivocal to a thesis.

At times, I do feel like the work load is more equivalent to a Ph.D with training and language in the mix. However, the experience is really enriching and reinforcing the things I have already learned in the classroom.

Training and graduate work combined should help significantly when I arrive at site. Which, brings me to the main theme of this entry: site placement!

I must say, yesterday was the most exciting and important day of PST because it was the day we found out about where we will spend our next two years as PCV's. (Peace Corps Volunteers).

My site is located in Isan (Eastern Thailand) in a province near the Cambodian Border.

See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isan

Between yesterday and today I have been like a sponge asking and learning everything I can about my site. My family (especially my host father) has been very eager to share with me everything he knows about Isan--even offering an insight into the Thai dialect spoken there.

Here are some mentionable tid bits:

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  In my community, they speak Central Thai, Lao, Isan (a dialect of Thai and Lao), and Kamer--the language spoken in Cambodia.


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  Isan people are lovely, animated, and culturally/ community- centric.


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  The area is popular for tourism with many ancient wat's (Buddhist temples)--some dating back to the 10th century A.D. left by the ancient Kamer empire.


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  The area is dry and very hot most of the year with little rain fall.


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  In past years, parts of Isan were deemed to be some of the poorest areas of Thailand though, more recent years, many development projects and efforts have improved the status quo.


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  Local cusine could consist of various "mystery meats" including dog, cat, field mice, lizzard, and snake. I am dubious!


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  Local people subsist off of a variety of activities including (but not limited to) agricultural production, raising silk worms/ producing and selling silk, making and selling wood crafts, animal husbandry, small business enterprise, and tourism.


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  The province is located 6 to 7 hours bus ride away from Bangkok.

This is only the tip of the iceberg. I have yet to discover so much more about this area and the community in which I will live. The excitement continues with my upcoming site visit in a few days! I will try to keep as up to date as possible.

A Day In the Life...

Great Beatles song!
Going with the theme of daily schedules, here’s an overview of a ‘typical’ PST weekday for me :

5:45 AM: Rise and shine!

5:45-6:10 AM: Stretch, do some yoga, review the PST agenda for the day.

6:10-6:35 AM: Wash my face, brush teeth, and get dressed.

6:40- 7:00 AM: Wai to my host Maa and Paa, talk about my plans for the day, and eat breakfast. Breakfast is usually a cup of coffee (freeze dried), rice, leftovers from the night before, and/or a vegetable-egg stir-fry. Sometimes there is a sweet, egg-based custard accompanied by sticky rice.

7:00-7:45 AM: Bike with my neighbor volunteer to our Tambon office (S.A.O) which equates to about 6 KM or 4 miles of biking.

7:45-8:00 AM: Change into ‘riap roy’ clothes—usually a long skirt, modest/semi-dressy top, and closed-toe casual shoes.

8:00-11:45 AM: Language class with 3 fellow volunteers. 10-minute breaks are included. Usually language class consists of reviewing past lessons and conversing about simple topics such as time of day and food. A new topic is introduced each day. We also play games and try some role-playing in different scenarios. Lately, we have been working on reading and writing Thai letters towards the end of the lesson using the Fidel Alphabet System.

11:45 A.M. -12:00 PM: Change back into biking clothes.

12:00-1:30 PM: Eat lunch—usually with my Thai teacher (ajan) and 3 fellow volunteers. Lunch is usually rice with an egg and mixed vegetable stir fry , pad thai, or a sort of noodle with shrimp or chicken. It depends though. I am finding out about new combinations and dishes every day it seems.

1:30-4:30 PM: Work on community assessment activities. This includes such activities as biking around and interviewing community members about their daily activities and drawing community maps with participants. We also inquire about yearly schedules such as crop planting and harvest season, school calendar, and temple activities—how monks live and significant Buddhist events.

Afternoon biking amounts to about 7-10 KM or 5-6 miles. Though sometimes there is not afternoon biking and we spend the time in our S.A.O. office sifting through data we have already collected.

One day a week, we reconvene with all the TCCO and CBOD volunteers to talk about general issues like culture, home stay, and health.

Other afternoon activities include learning technical skills with all 24 CBOD volunteers. Such technical topics include how to be a facilitator, inquire about different topics, brainstorm with community members, and present/design project ideas.

4:30- 5:00 PM: Reconvene and reflect on findings at the S.A.O. office.

5:00-6:00 PM: Change into bike clothes if need be and bike home—about 5 KM or 3.1 miles.

6:00-6:45 PM: Have a cool beverage with the host family and talk about what I did during the day, play games for a while (Botche ball is very popular here).

6:45- 7:00 PM: Go to my room and organize my homework for the night, gather dirty clothes, call or text friends.

7:00- 7:20 PM: Bathe. The bathroom consists of a large basin full of water with a small pale in it. By dipping the pale and pouring water, it is possible to get sufficiently clean all over. The water in the basin should remain relatively clean though since everyone uses it. It comes from rain water collected in large vats of water that surround the house.

7:30-7:45: Get dressed, start to wash clothes if need be—some clothes I hand wash and others I put in the semi-automatic washing machine.

7:45-8:00 PM: Eat dinner with the family. Dinner may consist of rice, a fried egg dish with vegetables, various vegetable and meat stir-fried, dried fish, spicy noodles with vegetables, soups with shrimp, fish, or chicken, vegetables, and spices.
Mmm…Thai food is delicious!

Sometimes there is dessert and sometimes not. It usually consists of fruit: lychee, oranges, papaya, apples, and/or dragonfruit. Otherwise, a sort of gelatinous dessert with coconut, sugar-coated fried dough wonderful-ness, or egg-based custards.

After meals we usually sit a while and converse while intermittently watching television.

9:00-10:30/11 P.M.: Do language, technical, and some grad school homework (depends on how tired I am). Then, get ready for bed, set out clothes for the next day, finish laundry, set up my mosquito net, douse myself with bug repellant, and good night!

Speaking Thai as a Host Family Fun Time

Aside from daily language lessons with a Thai Ajan (teacher), speaking Thai with the host family offers a surplus of language practice.

If you know me, you know I can be a bit of a silly person at times and I like to laugh a lot. Which, turns out to be quite an advantage while living in a completely foreign (in many forms) environment. Especially when it comes to language. Speaking Thai is a painstaking process. Though, it is often fun and undoubtedly, rewarding over time. Luckily, my host family enjoys teaching Thai and practicing with me every day. Plus, they like to laugh a lot as well.

In Thai, there are 44 consonants and 32 vowels—just think in English there are only 5, sometime 6 vowels! It is also very tone-sensitive with 5 different distinguishing tones: mid/neutral, rising, falling, high, and low. The meaning of a word then depends on the tone marking associated with it as well as the context. For instance, kǎao and kâao have two different meanings; though they are spelled the same, they have different tone markings. The first means white and the later means rice. So you begin to see how important it is to use the correct tones, less the wrong meaning is conveyed. It is a constant struggle of mine to say things correctly. However, it can be fun to practice saying things. I find words that I particularly like and tend to say them over and over again. Such as, toad (Kang Kōk). We happened to have a family of these funny little creatures living under our dining table and whenever I see one, I like to blurt out Kang Kōk! I also do this with random food dishes and feelings such as saying it’s hot or that tastes cold. It’s a humbling experience all together—to be childlike and accept that inevitable mistakes will be made.

What’s the easiest part about Thai? Forget memorizing 10 different time tenses! To express future and past actions in Thai, simply adding a word that expresses an action has occurred or will occur is all that needs to be done. For example, to say I have already eaten, I just say ‘ Gin Leeo’ –the ‘leeo’ in this context, expresses an action that has already happened. Literally, I have eaten already. But the verb itself “to eat” (gin) does not change.
I find that if I take time, practice, talk to anyone about anything I can remember, laugh a lot, pardon my own losses, and keep at it, then—at the end of each day—I decide to give it a go again tomorrow.

By the end of training, as a CBOD Volunteer, I am expected to reach Intermediate-Low language proficiency. This consists of using language to talk about basic and some techical topics such as asking directions, telling time, describing tastes and feelings, recognize and respond to questions, talk about daily activities, and getting into simples technicalities of CBOD work.

I will have some of my own pictures up soon!

Becoming an Aa saa sa mak in Thailand

Technicalities….

Buzz word of the day (in Thai): Aa saa sa mak = Volunteer

Weeks two and three have been all about getting to the heart of what it means to be a Peace Corps Volunteer in Thailand. Personally, it means learning to adjust to a variety of situations, having heightened consciousness, being open-minded, and also being sincere.
On the technical side it also includes, at large, becoming a competent, able-bodied community development facilitator. In the Thai government structure, a person with the job description most comparable to this in the public administrative position is chief executive (or ‘Naa-Yok’) who oversees the “tambon” –A tambon can be likened to a ‘county’ in the States which can include a number of smaller villages within it.

Of the 51 volunteers in group 121, 24 of us are community developers (CBOD). The remaining 29 volunteers are English Teachers and community organizers (TCCO). Ours roles, as volunteers, often intersect so we learn basic skills about teaching English and the teachers learn about community organizing. Training activities include a “mock” CBOD project. This entails breaking up into groups of 4 and being assigned a certain Tambon to work in. In this project, we conduct community mapping, participatory needs assessment activities, and intentional relationship building (IRBing). By the end of the ‘mock’ project, we present our findings to our Peace Corps, the Naa-yok, community members, and public administrative staff.

The ‘mock’ project takes up most of our afternoons as we go out into the communities and ask questions, draw maps, and get a sense of the local lifestyles and livelihoods. After each major activity, we come together as a group to debrief and reflect upon our findings.

First month in Thailand

Sawatdeeka! Greetings! Bienvenidos desde Tailandia!

Hi all,
It has now been over a month since I descended upon Thailand with my Peace Corp Training Group 121. I apologize for my lack of posts. As the days go by, I find time here and there to write. Though, internet access is limited since it is only possible to visit the internet cafe in the market about once a week.
Thus, I have built up a repertoire of entries which I will divulges below!

But first, here's a recap of some of the things I have experienced in the first month...

• Attended a funeral and a wedding--in two consecutive nights.
• Ate bug larva (unbeknownst to me).
• Went to a night bazaar.
• Successfully cooked a meal for my family-- including homemade french fries.
• Got sick several times.
• Been chased by dogs. Every-single-day.
• Taught my Thai family some English and Spanish words.
• Sang a song in Thai.
• Sang Karaoke in English.
• Danced at almost every social gathering.
• Got to know people in the community--their hopes, fears, woes, and livlihoods.
• Made several community maps.
• Made "Som Thom" or Green Papaya salad.
• Cried on several occasions after eating extremely spicy food.
• Did a transect walk accross the village and learned about crops and community dynamics.
• Met in-country Volunteers from Group 119 and 120.
• Had my first language proficiency test.
• Ate more rice than I have eaten in my entire life.
• Won a botche ball contest.
• Mastered using a squat toilet.
• Relished in my discovery of peanut butter being sold at 7-11.