Density

Hi all,
I just read my last blog post and it seems impossible that it was less than a week ago. From Tuesday to Friday, I would to observed teaching sessions with the monks in the monastery. The Monastery essentially serves as an orphanage. Boys are placed in a monastery if they are orphans or their parents cannot afford to take care of them. Life of a monk student is tough. Up every morning at 4, prayers till six when they do breakfast. For breakfast all of the monks are given metal bowls and roam the streets asking (not begging) for food. Monasteries are generally supported by the immediate community (breakfast donations are just one of many types of donations). For the rest of the morning the students take classes until eleven when they get their lunch. This is their last meal until 6 the next morning. The afternoon is spent working around the monastery. Pulling up and moving trees, replacing corrugated-metal roofs, digging ponds and water wells; all of this is done barefoot (or maybe in sandals). Monks in general cannot own belongings, listen to music or do any number of fun things (ha). The monk students follow many of these rules with exceptions. For example, they are allowed to learn how to work computers and use the internet because after they turn 18 they graduate from the monastery and are allowed to go to university. This is a pretty amazing opportunity for most poor kids in Thailand. Most monk students stop being monks when they turn 18.
Teaching the monks was fun. I hate the teaching methods that the TEFL organization had us learn. They are very dry, stilted and repetitive beyond the point of allowing learning to the point of disengaging the student. Furthermore, being an "entertaining" teacher is strongly discouraged (naturally you can tell they loved me! haha). The dress code for teachers here is really annoying. Slacks, dress-shirt, some places a tie and no lip-rings. Lame! It feels so weird to have no metal in my lip. ah well. I say these rules are annoying cause it is so goddamned hot here. Yes, I want to look professional (kinda), but i don't think sweating through my dress shirt looks very professional.
I will try to keep this paragraph short. I strongly discourage anyone from using TEFL international if you want to teach english. They are incredibly disorganized, and they SUCK at communication. On tuesday they told the group of trainees that they did not actually expect to find teaching placements for us. Rather, we would be working on computers teaching english to businessmen in Korea (note: they knew about this two months ago). I was livid. Furthermore, getting anymore information on the subject was impossible and riddled with two lines that I have heard waaay too much here: "Don't get mad at me, that's not my job," and what might as well be embroidered on every Thai flag: "It's Thailand, be flexible." The TEFL people were/are very rude and did not seem to care that teaching on a computer was not why I came to Thailand. On the plus side, the computer teaching job is in the town that I arrived in and very much met my specifications: small and on an awesome beach!
As the week went by, a few placement opportunities popped up one by one but they all required ladies only. In Thailand, there is nothing against having a very strict hiring requirement when in comes to age, gender, disability, religion etc. When these opportunities, the TEFL people gave the girls in my training group 5 pestered minutes to decide if they would take the job with the absolute minimum of information of where they would be living, and who and what they would be teaching. Within an hour, whoever took the job would be in a van off to their site; without completing the week of on-site training. Two ladies are now at a school teaching every subject!
Midway through Friday morning, as I was preparing for a quite weekend of traveling around Ban Phe, the course director of TEFL comes the the group of trainees and says there are 5 spots in Bangkok, open to anyone under 40. Bangkok was not high on my priority list, but I would be guaranteed a classroom. Two hours later I was in a van.
Bangkok is huge, fast and very dense. The city scape stretches for miles and the apartment buildings radiate for many more in every direction. All of the roads are packed at all times. People drive fast and wild. Motos weave in and out of cars, taxis pass each other on skinny one-way alleys, and the three-wheeled "Tuk-Tuks" are not afraid of anything. There are public busses, private mini-van buses, and private big buses that (due to underpaid/undertrained drivers) are apparently the most dangerous thing on the road. There are also scooter drivers for higher. You can just jump on the back of someones bike and go wherever you want. Helmets are not very big in Thailand (people where them, but id say less than half of people on a moto have one on). In the small, sleepy Ban Phe I was blown away by the reckless driving. Here I am shocked by it. There are markets that stretch for miles and sell pretty much everything. These are tiring because of how close everything is. Lots of people, lots of merchandise in a small hot and humid space. It becomes overwhelming when the random stench floats by. (note: the smells of Thailand are amazing. There are definitely good smells, but frequently, out of nowhere, a rogue stench will pirate your nose and make you nauseous. To ward against stench and faintness, people carry around these little bottles that they huff from. I am still not sure what there are.) Most people do not cook at home but buy food from street vendors and eat on the sidewalk. The food is good, cheap and everywhere. There is a lot of fried stuff and a ton of hot-dog-like-or-filled-things. It is very common for one city block to have three 7-11s. They are frequently placed right across the street from one another, its bizarre.
I was set up with a really plush studio apartment on the northern outskirts of Bangkok. I am on the sixth floor on the south side with a pretty sweet city-scape view. The four other people from my program all have studios right next door/right below mine. In coming to Bangkok, I was effectively sold to another company and am being placed through them. I now report to a company called Siam Computer and Language School. So far they are great. Very organized, very kind, and very honest. They placed all five of us in the same government school.
Tomorrow is my first day. I will have 20 classes of at least 50 students each. How many non-UC-Berkeley-faculty teachers do you know that can say they have 1,000 students? Luckily, I get to throw-out everything TEFL taught me and go with the optional lesson plans that Siam has provided. They very much encourage me to be "engaging". As of right now, I know that I will have 16 year olds and 14 year olds. I do not know when any of my classes are, where they are or any of the details that usually accompany a job. Its ok though, it's Thailand, and I am being flexible.
I am very suprised by the open misogyny of this country. During the week, female teachers could not touch the monks, nor could they hand them a piece of paper. Rather, they would have to put the piece of paper (or chalk, or whatever) on a chair and the monk would then pick it up. There are lots of kinda general anti-women social rules (dress-code stuff and so forth), but nothing compares to the prostitution industry. I have long heard about how Thailand was a favorite destination for sex-tourism, but I somehow didn't think it would be as open and shameless as it is. Here in bangkok, a common scene at night is the old-dirty white man (ODWM) with the young pretty Thai girl in a 7-11 buying protection, and basic toiletries for the girl. These ODWM get me so angry. Even during the day you can spot them from a mile. They just walk with this posture that clearly indicates that they think that are hot-shit in a consequence-free playground. There was actually one in our trainee group. He was here to take and conquer and didn't seem to have an awareness that what he was doing might not be ok (This macho, mustache-laden used-car-salesman actually had business contacts back in Florida who he would sell the shells he would find on the beach. Next time you buy some touristy crap in florida, know you might be getting a piece of Thailand). It is so sad to me how easily these ODWM exploit financial inequality. What disgusts me is how none of them see it for what it is.
Ok, sorry to end on a downer note, but as I look at how long this post is, I bet most people didn't make it to the end anyway haha! ok, Im gonna post some pics!

--jon