Pattaya: The Epidemic

I've spent a several hour bus ride contemplating how to describe the events of the past weekend. Although I think that I've come to the ultimate conclusion that a first hand, eye witness experience is the only way, I'll attempt to use words.

I had originally planned on going to Koh Samet this past weekend, a beach about 3 hours from Bangkok, to attend a full moon party on the beach. Last minute, I decided to change my plans and go with some girls to Pattaya, a closer, popular beach in Thailand.. little did I know what it was popular/famous for until arrival. So, expectation: 48 hours spent relaxing on the beach, lounging by the hotel pool, & devouring buffet style breakfast. And you know what? All of these things happened. It's the events leading up to these blissful experiences that made me re-evaluate the term "sugar daddy".



We arrived in Pattaya sometime between 9-10 pm and begin our search for a hotel. We start walking and experience the Pattaya nightlife which is comparable to Amsterdam. But comparable in that Pattaya makes Amsterdam's Red Light District seem upscale and desirable (no offense to the city because I absolutely loved being there). But Pattaya had quite the eccentric population. We walked through small alleys with our backpacks bulging from our backs, becoming an easy target for the locals. Surrounded by neon lights and bad karaoke, we're now on the receiving end of broken American phrases for things like "sexy massage" and "tuk tuk ride", all for which are probably not G-rated experiences at this hour. The bars we pass are all locals, with live music (mostly country), half naked dancing thai girls, and an overwhelmingly amount of odd pairs.

But, the odd pairs weren't just in the bars.. nope. They were everywhere and I couldn't understand it. Older, western men, aged between 45-75 years old. Their significant others were native to Thailand, much younger, never once showing a visible sign of emotion. It was the strangest sight to see and so fascinating most of the time I couldn't look away. All of the stereotypes are insanely true and Pattaya is not only where it was invented but is no where near extinction. It's an epidemic, really and a strangely accepted lifestyle. You see one pair and it seems to multiply in front of your eyes. For all I know I could have just been running into the same couple over and over.. maybe I'll just keep telling myself that.

Shocked and a little creeped out, we trekked on and searched for a somewhat normal hotel. What we found was up for interpretation.. specifically since we were greeted at the door by what Thailand calls "ladymen". Looking past and ultimately just accepting that this was Pattaya's tranny-tastic culture (a naturally), we booked the 200 baht a night room, which the inside did not at all reflect its exterior. We also looked past the Thai women who would wander in an out of the other rooms with wads of money in their hands but I'm not gonna jump any conclusions... alright, fine. All exaggerations aside, I can now formally say that I've slept in a brothel.

Needless to say we booked it out of there in the morning. Pattaya in the daylight wasn't so bad, but our minds were set on a specific combination: beach, pool, breakfast buffet. After we walked for what seemed like hours and a little tease from the Hard Rock Hotel, we finally stumbled upon the Mike Orchid Resort, which met all of our needs and making my chua jet tee dee jet hon possible.

The beach was literally a block away and I needed some sort of stress release in the form of an adrenaline adventure. So we gave into the Thai locals and their touristy pressuring: jetskiing. One of the best decisions I made all trip. Cruising through the Gulf of Thailand with nothing but waves with the sprinkling of sailboats and the distant outlining of the mountainous islands surrounding the city. Sorry New Jersey, there's no comparison.

So if there are a few things I've learned from this trip it's this: functioning brothels are surprisingly clean, Subways are God's gift to me, dating guys my age and from my native hemisphere isn't all that bad, and the sunsets will never get old.

Beginnings are awkward, but then again, so am I.

Ciao! Emily Cotter Clare Hauze finally has a blog! After much anticipation and many requests, I have begun the intense documentation of my Thai adventures and interactions, which let's be honest, yield a ridiculous amount of "Really?! Did that just happen?" moments and embarassment. So, I am opening up my brain in written form to the world, particularly for those passionate readers (cough Glynnis Fastiggi cough) and hopefully to my family members who are extremely amused by my current situation.
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To start at the beginning, I'm currently living & teaching in Bangkok, Thailand. I've been here for about 3 weeks and will be here until around March/April of 2011. The decision to come here was a piece of cake. So in order to prevent you from believing that the following stories/complaints/freak-outs are a motive to elude to how miserable I am, that's not the case. I have absolutely no regrets about my decision to be here. I can't imagine myself anywhere else.

This new and culturally shocking environment has been everything but what I expected it to be. Let's just say I set the bar pretty high. I thought..

1. The food will be amazing. I've never tried it but my friends and family swear by it.
2. The people will be kind, gracious and magically all speak English.
3. The students will genuinely respect the ground the teacher walks on and hang on every word you say... and of course, will magically understand English.
4. It won't be thaaaaaaaat hot.
5. I'll barely spend any money.
6. Everything will be organized, structured.. even more so than American schooling.
7. Friendships will come easy and we'll end up being one big happy family.

Okay... so I was seriously wrong.

But, I will tell you this: Every cloud has a silver lining. And ironically, that seems to be a theme in my life as I keep discovering new things in my environment. So this is how my blog got its name, 'Chua jet tee fee jet hon'; the Thai version of "Every cloud has a silver lining" but is literally translated to "Bad seven times, good seven times." With this in mind, my (lucky) 7 fantasy expectations may not have been a reality but a little good comes out of each one, as my glass half-full outlook likes to remind me on a daily basis. Time to explain...
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1. St. Gabriel's, the school where I teach, provides the teachers with a free lunch everyday, which is great because it saves me the 30 baht I would spend somewhere else. The first meal I experienced in the canteen(thai version of cafeteria) was a plate of rice with a version of meat on top as well as a cup of soup, which had a chicken broth appearance. Seemed simple enough so I dove in. I probably should have mixed the soup first or atleast take a peek at what lay at the bottom of the bowl. A chicken foot, or what resembled one, was one of the many chunks that floated in the broth. Not floating, it actually looked like it was trying to climb out of the cup. But I looked past the foot, because the more intriguing component of the soup was something that resembled a piece of chocolate fudge/sirloin steak. After much question, it was (sadly) neither of those things. It was probably the last thing I would have thought: solifidied blood. Who's blood? Good question.

I've discovered that the lunches will always be a mystery. Spicy, chewy, bad aftertaste, spicy, crunchy, bland, really really spicy. All words are now part of my vocabulary. But with the bad comes the good. The incredibly good. Vendors line the street and there are 7-11's on literally every corner, just as a safety for Americans when they need some sort of food outlet. I've found pork fried rice is my go-to Thai meal, only if I can remember how to say it in thai. Finding a restaurant that has a menu in English isn't challenging, just limiting. Dinner time is usually the time to explore and try new things, even if it means taking risks. With these risks, guilty pleasures develop. For example, mine include Tim Tams (a chocolate covered wafer with different filling- milk chocolate, caramel, strawberry, etc), mini pancakes (from the Pancake Lady obviously, for 10 baht), fried planteens (basically grilled bananas in a sweet, carmelized sauce) and fruit smoothies (strawberry pineapple is the new favorite). So overall the food is getting better and its extremely convenient and cheap. Dinners cost around 30 baht, which is under a dollar. For someone who barely ever craves it, I never thought I would eat so much rice in my life. Such a traditional part of a Thai meal but dangerous to my new and growing rice belly.

2. Imagine you are walking down the street or eating at a crowded restaurant. No big deal, right? Now imagine this same situation but you have a couple heads, no nose and maybe some sort of tail. This is the way most Thais look at us, as Americans, as if we have all these things. The stares are commonly received and last for about 15-20 seconds normally. I still can't tell if it's a good or bad look, disgusted or jealous of our pale white skin.. a quality that most Thais desire. EVERYTHING has whitening in it. All lotions, creams, you name it. The Thais believe that light skin is beautiful and that dark skin represents poor/lower class. So I guess I can cross that off my list of things to worry about, thank you Irish heritage!

Okay, let's start off my saying, not all three parts of my expectations of the attitude of Thai people were proven wrong. In a number of circumstances, I have experienced some of the most pleasant, genuine, and selfless interactions with Thai people and have made me re-evaluate the word kindness in America. Thais are some of the happiest people in the world. The simple act of smiling is something I've come to appreciate. With so much lost in translation, Thais make a genuine effort to understand and to help you, or just to ask you questions to practice their own English. Like the time I wandered to get coffee from a stand down the street and ended up with double the cafe yen (iced coffee) and a bag full of fresh fruit from one of the fellow St Gabriels teachers.
Most people are kind and gracious, but the language barrier can be frustrating at times, especially when teaching. Frustrating because the teachers and students don't understand you and visa versa. But with frustration comes amusement; basically just looking at each situation and laughing about it rather than crying, which a lot of times should be the expected reaction. I've learned to laugh more because it makes situations more bearable. For instance, my male Thai co-teacher introduces and explains the vocabulary for each story we read in class to the students. One of the vocab words was "single" in the context of "He could not remember a single letter." He talks about how single means "one" or "only". So far so good, I agree with him. But obviously he doesn't think the kids are understanding, so he tries another approach.. "Me..I am married. I have wife and son. I am couple." In my head, I can see where this is going so I just wait until the following line is spoken...."Now, Ms Emily is single..one person, alone, no husband, no boyfriend.. no couple." And, you know, juts to reiterate the meaning, why not write it on the front board? He does and repeats it out loud. Whether or not the students understood English that day, I'm pretty positive they were now fully aware of my marital status. Francis, that's my co-teacher's name, is also famous for singing random songs while teaching. Some of the lines go "I'm gonna kick you" or "I'm gonna kill you", which I've realized, the musical arrangement really doesn't change the underlying meaning of either phrase. My co-teacher is, in actuality, a very nice man.. just with hints of creepyness. Moments like this show that Thais truely have no idea when they're being offensive.

3. I honestly think I could fill this entire blog with my thoughts and feelings on my expectation of the students,and I think this is mainly because of my background in education. Being an elementary education major, I've experienced classroom management at its finest (both ends of the spectrum). I think alot about my mentor teachers and how they would feel being here and just kind of giggle to myself. Calling out, never prepared, constantly with the wiggles. All of the hard work and confidence I gained during my internship has completely been drained out of me. Not only do I not have control of the students, but neither do the Thai teachers, and they speak the same language. Walking into St. Gabriels the first day, I never expected to witness a swarm of 5000 boys, aging from 5-17. It's a difficult to describe because I want to do it justice and not seem like my current profession is one big exaggeration.

Thai boys are strangely violent and honestly, just plain weird. They wrestle, kick, hit, slap, yell, pinch, bite one another on a normal basis. On average, 3 out of 30, or 10%, of students in class actually know what you're saying. Those students excel, with meticulous handwriting dare I say. The rest are either lost, zoned out, asleep, playing with their pencil box like it's a gun or just blantantly making fun of you for being foreign. One of the biggest culture shocks within the school is definitely the discipline. The ruler is used (often) as a tool of punishment and consequence. I try to look past it, tell myself this is Thailand, not the United States, things are different here. I try not to look at it like abuse because in a way, I guess they think it's working. The ruler whipping and back slapping do scare me, but my mom reminded me that when she was a student in Catholic school, they did take similar actions with misbehaving children. It doesn't change my mind into thinking this form of discipline is appropriate/deserved by any means but it helps me to understand it. The school is militarily influenced and it scares me to think that my teaching brain will become harsher and more violent, especially when at the end of the day, my throat burns from yelling. Witnessing the Thai form of classroom management also gives me a new perspective on the life of a student in Thailand and how pressures are incredibly different than what I recall from western education.

There are moments when I'm thankful for being around these kids because althought it seems like all of them are devil children, some are perfectly innocent and pleasant to be around. The sound of their voices yelling "Teacha Teacha" is both annoying and satisfying. Downtime, such as snacktime, are when you get to truely interact with them. Cute moments, like when the first graders must wai (or bow) to you before receiving their milk and snack.. or watching their eyes light up when they earn a sticker for a correct answer. Learning how to count to ten in Thai from an 8 year old boy ultimately represents that the teacher-student relationship is reversible. My students are 100% my mini-teachers. The cutest, toothless smile on my "teacher's" face when I was able to successfully repeat back the numbers to him made it all worth it.

4. It's hot here. Really hot and humid. Sometimes even when I get out of the shower, I'm not sure if it's water or sweat. I've learned that I'm never fully clean (especially because my shower is located above my toilet, but that's a separate issue). With monsoon season coming in, the nights are a little cooler with the breeze. But, each morning I'm up at 6am and its atleast 90 degrees outside. I have never been so thankful and grateful for a fan and the AC. It's no desert, but it does take alot out of me sometimes, especially while teaching. This sounds old lady of me, but the feeling of coming home after a long day at work, just to bask in a cool room is ridiculously comforting. So the weather isn't at the top of my list, but it's definitely on there, but just to reaffirm, the sun may be bright but my paleness isn't going anywhere.

5. The money issue is a complicated one. I still feel like I'm dealing with monopoly money, like it's not real. But not only that, the whole making money because I have an legitimate job still baffles me. It's strange to think my last job required me to flip burgers, slice potatoes into fries, and sell candy to campers.. and now I'm enlightening and brightening the lives of young asian boys who only understand every seventh word I say. But, back to the money situation, it's difficult to budget because you want to do so much. I've traveled 2 out of the 4 weekends I've been here so far, which adds up but I surprisingly haven't gone more than 300 dollars. Eating is cheap, definitely.. drinking is a bit more expensive but I haven't really focused my effort on that aspect yet. I'm hoping my budgeting is successful over the next few months because traveling is most important to me right now in my life. I'm so grateful I have the opportunity to access such amazing places and can look back to say "Wow, I actually did that.. and it was unreal."

6. The moment we got to Bangkok, nothing was certain. I wake up every morning without a freaking idea as to what the day has in store for me. Routines, schedules and punctuality have been thrown out the window. Our coordinator is basically pulling us on a string and we're trying to hold on to keep up with her. The first day, we met with Ms. Pat (our coordinator) to fill out paperwork and get our schedules. Surprise! The school didn't have one for me. Shocking. Naturally, they offer me someone else's who isn't there yet and we'll just figure it out later. Oh, then it was time to get tested for syphillis. You know, the STD. Confused? Yeah, so were we.
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The school's a bit disorganized and there really isn't a strong communication level. I miss knowing exactly what I need to do.. it was reassuring to know what was expected of me. But again, the guessing game has its perks. Terrible to say, but it's insanely each to play the 'Stupid American' card. Just saying "I didn't know" or "I don't understand", kind of makes things less tense and for the most part, you aren't lying. There's a good chance you are literally clueless.

Time is different here, I've discovered. The weeks fly by but the hours of the day go slowly. As expected, weekends are what make the weeks manageable. Living in the present moment is something I am striving to do, rather than worrying about the past or future. Focusing on what you're doing right now is important and makes you appreciate each situation, whether awkward, embarassing, or just plain fun.

7. I saved my expectation on friends and relationships for last for a reason, mainly because I believe it's had the most impact on my experience thus far. I've been a part of two equally strong and rare friendships over the course of my life. The first: Home (Phoenixville) friends. Constant since elementary school. We have the kind of relationship where we don't really need to talk for months but as soon as we're all together, it's like nothing has changed. They're definitely a form of family and comfort in my life, in that some of them even refer to my mother as "Mom", (or Gerty or Momma Hauze, or Ellen). I also don't doubt that my friendship with them will outlast many other relationships in my lifetime. The second: School (Loyola) friends. These friendships began during a time I was struggling the most. I consider them the people who saved my college experience... literally. I was sitting in the Dean of Students office, ready to transfer, but then I gave it one last shot and spent more time with the girls in my major, and THANK GOD I did. I found people that were actually like me and I felt comfortable with them. These friendships solidified only to go abroad and make even more remarkable friends (see next paragraph), which would later make my Senior year unforgettable. So even though the lifespan of my school friendships is about a fifth of that of my home friendships, they have equally impacted my life and outlook today.

Coming here a month ago, I fully believed that I would meet and become best friends with all of the fellow foreign teachers. We came from all over, different schools, different states, definitely a big group of strangers, for the most part. I want to start off by saying everyone is friendly, easy to get along with, and fun to be around. The group is full of very different personalities (but in an intriguing way). I can honestly say I strongly envy the outgoing quality in many of these people.. someone who is not afraid to let their guard down and is comfortable just being themselves in front of anyone. Unfortunately, that's not the type of person I am. Get a few drinks in me, I'll chat it up with anyone, but as a sober human being, I'm one of the shyest people you will ever meet... and I hate it. The other issue I'm having here is that I'm comparing it to my last abroad experience in Cork, where I made friends pretty easily and they ended up being some of the most amazing friendships, ones that I can't really imagine myself without. Sure, this situation is completely new and extreme compared to Cork. The relationships that I had coming into this experience (prior friendships) have strengthened, but the relationships with new people have been difficult to label. It's one of those things that's in limbo.. the transition from acquaintence/co-worker.. to friend. And, I believe, with time, it's totally possible.
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There they are. My 7 Thai clouds of expectation. I'm hoping this blog will reflect me more as the iceberg I am (sarcastic on the surface, serious underneath). This particular post was yeahhhhh, a tad more sentimental than I expected, but I'm looking for that silver lining!