Reflection on Nan Project 2018

“I want to keep your love in the waters, but I’m afraid it will get cold.

I want to keep your love in the sky but I’m afraid it will get covered by the mist.

I want to keep your love with the town ruler but I’m afraid it might get stolen by him.

So I will keep your love in my heart.

Let it ring, moan and cry for you,

Even with me when I sleep or when I wake up.”

A poem accompanying the mural “love whisper (กระซิบรัก)” at Wat Phumin, Nan Province

Note: Pictures were taken by my teaching mates, the students and I on my own camera.

One year ago, I chose to go teach at a medium-sized elementary school because of a serious problem: I am losing the connection to my own cultural heritage, my own Thai-ness. After spending almost half my life abroad, I sometimes struggle to answer when people ask specific questions about my culture. When I speak Thai, it sounds a little bit like Google Translate. After the project last year, I felt I had understood my own culture better. My Thai was still somewhat broken but I benefited a lot by living in a small rural community. It was not that I was explicitly taught how people behave. Most of what I learned came from speaking with locals as well as observing how they behaved.

A small hut that farmers use to take breaks and have drinks together.

I returned to my last year of high school with some sense of enlightenment. Afterall, I learned something. However, I didn’t feel that our teaching them had much impact. When we left, the students probably returned to their normal lives and probably forgot about what we taught them. So in a way, it was a one way gain for me where I was able to absorb all that insights about my own culture. What the students gained, however, is mostly pure fun. And so as I found myself inundated with college applications the senior year grind, the satisfaction and the memory of the project slowly slid away into some dark corner of my mind.

Earlier this year when I was accepted in college, I found myself lacking a purpose. It’s nice to be done with everything in terms of school work but this enormous amount of free time made me ask myself: What am I really doing outside of school? I thought of a few clubs I’m in but my duties also ended as I have to hand my position over to the new board. I also don’t really have a personal project or any impressive hobbies. Last year’s project, to me, was not that life changing in any direction. I had already selected a major (Urban Planning) for college, sure, but I still don’t know how I can translate it into a meaningful profession I can do back in Thailand (my mom forbids me from working in the government as my uncles have already suffered enough in its bureaucratic kludge). I envy those who have special talents as they can focus their energy mastering their creative selves. At the moment, I lack a passion I can spend hours and hours on. I ended my senior year asking the question, “how can I add something meaningful to my life?”

This summer, a team of 9 people, my sister and I found ourselves back in Nanoi, Thailand teaching at the same school. I think teaching here is a win-win situation for both the school and for myself. I teach the students using the knowledge I’ve gained abroad and the school teaches me the Thai values that are absent from my growth. Here was where I started reconnecting to my own heritage and I hoped to strengthen this connection again this year. I still feel oblivious to many customs and traditions (as I will explain later), but I slowly started to understand how this complex culture functions. On top of learning about Thai culture, I hope to answer my own existential question: how can I add meaning to my life?

Corn is a very common crop here. It grows very quickly and are used to feed livestock. However, the lack of crop variety can make farmers vulnerable if the market turns unfavourable to corn.

Around an hour away from the main town of Nan Province, Nanoi sat in a bowl-like valley with mountains hugging the town like a ring. Between the town and the mountains stood boxes of rice paddies terraced around the roads and the houses. The town became bigger than last year with a four-lane road dashing through the center of the town. There are not a lot of cars, however, giving the town more of a peaceful feel. But the roar of motorcycle engines could wake you up early in the morning. These noises still did not drown out the calls of animals that echoed the valley every day though. Only the rain could submerge all sound into silence under its ubiquitous melody. And on most mornings, the rain was all I can hear for it is the annual Monsoon (rainy) season.

A lone farmer goes to get the soil ready for rice planting

The first thing that stood out right away is that this Thai town is cleaner than most parts of the country. I believe that it is due to a smaller population. Not only is it cleaner than most Thai towns, the streets also seem safer. There are more people biking around and the cars cruised at a slower speed. The town itself wore a more relaxing tone. This may be because I just arrived from a city carved out mindlessly by canyons of glass and concrete. What I really love about the town, though, is that many of the buildings are still made out of wood. The architecture of the town follows the traditional Lanna (Northern Thailand) style. Personally, I think this type of architecture fits in so well with the expanse of green rice fields that surrounded it. It felt as if the town was still stuck in the past with only a slight accent of modernity (electric poles, roads, etc.) acting as its garment. If preserved and promoted, I think towns in Nan can have their own version of Kyoto’s machiya revitalization.

None of the buildings here were rotting. The wood used to construct has a smooth texture.

Outside the town, there are not a lot of components in the landscape. These simplistic components – the rice fields, the jungle, the mountains, – still came together to create interesting variations which altogether composed a beautiful landscape for our eyes to gaze at. When we drove south towards Nanoi, I often spot the orange-tiled roofs of temples or wooden huts shelved between the lush canopies. Perhaps it is better that modernity does not reach this part of the country.

We began teaching the day after we arrived. The teachers and staff were very happy to see us again. The students too were ecstatic, but I think they were more drawn to the fact that they would be bribed with candy and snacks to learn simple English vocabulary.

Morning Buddhist prayers. Some students are wearing red here because they have PE. Otherwise, they would be wearing standard school uniform.

The kids here were very open and honest. It was as if they lack any kind of filter. If you were slightly fat or maybe not at all, they would point that out for sure (“haha, you’re kind of fat”). If you forgot to bring snacks to their class, they would give you this hybrid expression that blended a smile and a frown together. But this kind of uncensored speech, to me, was refreshing. Perhaps I enjoyed the fact that they didn’t keep things to themselves.

They also loved to tattle tale. During school assembly, if they caught one of their friends playing on their phones. They would tell us. Because we were not actually “teachers,” we told them that it’s okay. The tattle talers would then look back at their friends, raising a confused brow.

Kindergarten girls reading in the library while waiting to perform in front of the whole school during the "Thai Language Day."

The rest of the school dress in local dress. Here lowerclassmen are waiting for the student performance to start.

Kindergarten kids get to sit at the front. This girl in the picture loves to dance. Unfortunately, she was selected for that day.

One of the student dressed as a character in premodern Thai literature

Students create a walkway for the "Thai Literature Characters Cosplay Competition"

The candidates walk out as their classmates cheer (or roast) them on

Characters from Ramakien which came from a Hindu epic Ramayana

When students pass by a teacher they have to bow their heads to show respect.

What to do when the assembly is unreasonably long

Before every lesson, the team members and I would bring loads of snacks to lure the kids into paying attention. Our strategy was to divide the kids into teams and the team with the most points (gained from winning games and answering questions) would get the best candies. We felt bad for the rest of the class that didn’t win (their faces became really pale after the winning team went up to collect their prize) so we had some smaller candies to give to the rest of the class – kind of a participation reward.

Even if we told them we are going to start a game now, some still continue to finish whatever was written on the board.

One of our teaching staff (Nadon) correcting the kids on their writing.

Those that finished were allowed to sit around and relax.

The “team system” where we divide the kids into teams and give or subtract points was a pretty controversial method among our teaching team members. I personally thought it was a good idea. Anthropologists had come up with what is called the “rice theory” which claims that Asian cultures tend to be more collective due to interdependence on each other while planting rice during the Monsoon seasons. My experience last year also proved that kids tend to behave better since they didn’t want to upset their teammates. I was, however, teaching upperclassmen last year. This year, I was tasked with teaching grade 3 and 4 and they were much more fragile. These kids, after all, were finally crossing the bridge to become “upperclassmen.” The first time we taught one of the 3rd grade class, we wanted them to understand that they had to wait until they were called upon before answering. One boy got the question right and was the fastest but he blurted out loud, so we took off five points from his team. What happened next made my heart wither in guilt. The boy started crying and sat down in the corner of the class because of all the stares he got from his teammates. It took another 15 minutes before he stood up and participated again. Luckily, it seemed that he held no grudge against us as he was smiling while blurting out more answers.

Elementary school kids were fragile mentally and physically but that was normal. The school, however, was unique because the kids recovered extremely fast. Lunch time was a minefield of injuries. One day, a 1st grader was hit with a Frisbee right on her forehead and she immediately started crying. Five minutes later, right when her friends brought her to the teacher’s office, she stopped crying and said that it didn’t hurt anymore. There were many similar cases that happened but it all ended the same with the kids going back to their activities only after a few minutes. The sight of seeing them cry, however, gave me a fair amount of anxiety (you could imagine how scared I was by the end of lunchtime).

We bought everyone the bubble blowing thingy, so during one lunchtime, the sky was covered with bubbles.

The school director loved taking me out to see local attractions so we got to talk quite a lot. One day when we passed by a small girl roleplaying as a store clerk in front of her house, the school director told me that these kids here were actually taken care of by their grandparents. Their parents would go to large cities for job opportunities and send the money back for their kid’s education.

The director taking us through the jungle to see some dirt pillars stacked up like a stupa.

He gave us some fruits he picked from a tree.

Dirt columns that are here for thousands of years apparently

Looking for more stuff to show off to us I guess

a typical neighborhood street in lush green tropical plants

Some buffalo we found in someone's backyard.

On our way back, he stopped by a rice paddy and easily caught a crab for us. — On our way back, he stopped by a rice paddy and *easily* caught a crab for us.

He's actually more dangerous than you think

During lunch, the kids were given an hour of free time to do whatever they wanted. Like I had observed last year, only a minority of students used their phones during this period. They would either play some kind of game or sport or work on their homework. Girls tend to hang out with girls while boys hang out with boys. The majority of the upperclass girls would do their homework on the floor in the large open beneath the new building that was constructed this year. They would also do it together in a large group. The younger girls (grade 1-3) would play games such as tag or something like that.

Students look at the latest handwriting competition results

Not sure if he was working hard or he was stuck in detention.

There are exceptions of course when kids chose to play a mobile game called ROV (a knockoff mobile version of League of Legends).

An after school exercise program. I don't know whether this prepares them for boxing or cheerleading.

Most boys (from grade 1-6) would play soccer. Soccer, to them, is the easiest sport to play. All you need is a ball and some rocks to indicate where the goal is. The upperclassmen boys occupied the largest piece of open concrete that is tucked away between the dining hall and the auditorium. The concrete space is still under construction so there are piles of sand and pebble lying everywhere. The teachers also parked their cars here too so if you kick too hard, you might damage these cars (the kids were kind of scared if the ball slightly scratched the hood of the cars). The space, however, still stood as the largest open space. Lowerclassmen boys were usually excluded from this so they would play by themselves in the narrower strip of concrete lanes or just sit on nearby stairs, wishing time to go faster so they could become upperclassmen. Since soccer was a really popular sport, not everyone got to play. Upperclassmen that were left out sat on the bench, hands spiked against their chins, with no hope of substitution. They just have to arrive earlier next lunchtime.

One day after school, the boys invited me to take a penalty kick on a narrow strip of concrete near the entrance of the school. Behind the wall stood the town’s meeting center. Forgetting how light the ball was, I accidentally kicked the ball over the fence and onto the roof of the meeting house. I was again, struck with guilt. Because of me, their after school party came to an end. To my surprise, the kids didn’t really care that much and didn’t really blame me. “Alright, let’s go home,” some of them would blurt out in a playful manner. Guilt was something I had to get used to.

"Hey Mr., please make me look like Ronaldo"

Our teaching team was full of international school students and those who studied abroad so none of us were used to Thai implicit culture. For example, we didn’t bow as we passed by the teaching staff nor did we greet them formally. We soon heard some complaints and had to adjust ourselves. These cultural gestures are the essence of being Thai. In a way, we were being taught to be ourselves. But we were not really lectured upfront. We just heard some complaints behind our backs. This indirect approach of teaching was also part of Thai collective culture.

Students lining up in rows as they go in their classrooms. They are expected to show respect to the teacher standing in front of them

While we were there, we participated in the Asancha Bucha festival which celebrated Buddha’s first sermon. The school paraded a candle to the nearby temple. For some reason, I had to be the one who had to light up the candles in front of the Buddha image. Knowing nothing about lighting candles, I lit up the candles on my right first and then to my left. The incense were also not lit properly. The monk caught this and then lectured me in front of both the teaching and the student body. Apparently, the candle to my left should be lit first. I was very embarrassed but I learned something (the hard way) about the ceremony.

Two 6th graders leading the parade to the temple

It was very hard trying to cover your candle while walking around the temple three times

You put the candles after three rounds around the temple.

To make sure it is not too crowded, there would always be someone taking candles off to make room for new ones.

Buddhism in their lives, on the other hand, goes beyond lighting candles and chanting the correct words during prayers. On one of my trips with the director, we stopped at a small coffee shop. One of the policemen came up to him and greeted him. This happened multiple times as random people came up to greet the director (everywhere we went in the province).

“How do you know so many people?”

“You see, I worked with a lot of people, so eventually I got to know quite a lot of people. Because we did good deeds together in our past lives, we were born together again. That’s why I’m surrounded by great people that I love. This is one of the essential beliefs of Buddhism.” He returned to the steering wheel as the car careened around hills of Mai Sak trees.

Ever since I studied abroad, I became more and more skeptical of Buddhist superstitions such as the afterlife and reincarnation. However, his explanation was somewhat intriguing. Perhaps he would continue to do good deeds with the people he loved so that they would be born together again next life. That was a very healthy way to look at relationships, I thought.

"Want to get some Longan?" The director asked me. I agreed. We got off at his plantation which was right by the road. He went into the jungle, and started hacking at some trees.  It turned out that he just created an impromptu stick to har… — "Want to get some Longan?" The director asked me. I agreed. We got off at his plantation which was right by the road. He went into the jungle, and started hacking at some trees. It turned out that he just created an impromptu stick to harvest the Longan.

A lot of Longan were blooming this summer

Our collected Longan. They tasted very sweet. It can be eaten right off the tree.

Another interesting experience of immersing in Thai culture was planting rice. The son, P’Ben, of the resort owner managed to talk to the local farmers and got us to plant some rice. The process of planting rice was harder than you might think. You had the use three fingers to hold the root of the rice. Plant it into the wet dirt while making sure it is not too deep. Then, use the remaining fingers to cover up the roots to make them stay in place. You have to repeat the process until the plant end up in neat and organized rows. Our team failed pretty badly as the paddy looked like a messier version of Van Gogh’s Starry Night rather than organized rows of rice stalks that the farmers wanted. The farmers had to come back to rearrange the stalks into neat looking rows.

The farmers were much faster than us and clearly created more aesthetically looking fields.

When the director drove me around, he often said that nowadays, everything is mechanized. The buffaloes are replaced with tractors that can be deployed quickly into the field. The director turned to me and said that he longed for the days where buffaloes run the paddies. “It is more aesthetically pleasing that way,” he said. Modernity often comes at a cost of the aesthetics of rusticity. The paddies were also riddled with pesticides. If the surface of the water was still and sparkled with foam, farmers used pesticide for sure. The pressure to use pesticide comes from the fact that when surrounding farmers use pesticides, you don’t want your own farm to be destroyed from migrating pests.

Soon the fields will be covered in green

Without much purpose, these buffaloes just stay around near the paddies.

A girl that often visited us at the resort after school told me that a dog was hit around midnight. Blood gushed everywhere and everyone in her house woke up to the sound of its last yelp.

“What about the car,” I asked.

“It was gone.”

“It was a hit and run?”

“Yeah.”

“What happened to the dog?”

“Well, it’s dead.”

“What did you do?”

“I didn’t do anything to it. The villagers probably ate it. Or maybe they buried it. No. They must’ve eaten it.”

I stopped asking her questions.

“Why, did you feel bad for it?” she asked.

“I guess so.”

The girl herself had a long scar on her right leg. I asked her what happened but she never told me. One of her friends told me that she was hit by a car many years ago. We never talked about the topic again.

I usually wake up really early in the morning to take in the rural air that Bangkok was not able to provide with its choking pollution. P’Ben, the resort owner’s son, would come really early in the morning to prepare breakfast for us. On some days I got to talk to him about a variety of things.

He once took his kids to Australia once. He said that rural Australia did not have any people living there and it is filled with farms. These farms, however, were mechanized. It’s harder to do the same thing here in Nan, he said. The land is leveled and hilly differently making it more difficult for complete automation. He told me that he noticed that Thai people are very different from Australians. Westerners, he said, will try to live independent lives once they reach a certain age. Thais, on the other hand, will most likely always live near their parents and take care of them. That’s the fundamental difference between “us” and “them.” We’re just so different culturally, he would tell me.

P'Ben's youngest daughter, Seethien (translated to Crayons). She just entered kindergarten.

Seethien, her brother Seemai (Colored Pencils) and her cousin Plaeng (Music). Since Plaeng hangs around with her cousins so much, she was given the prefix "See" or Color as well making her name SeePlaeng or Color of Music.

The resort owner (we call him Gamnan) helping his granddaughter.

Seemai helping Seethien make nutella toasts

P'Ben teaching his son some manners while eating. Manners are something every Thai parent obssess over.

He also told me that he was not really allured by the better standards of living abroad. It’s harder to live elsewhere than here. One of his relatives who lived in the States was shot and robbed from her store. “Guns sure are scary.”

Seemai volunteering to clean the concrete at the back of the resort, taking the broom away from his sister

P'Ben had to come in to clean it up himself.

Since his eldest daughter is almost the age where she has to go to middle school, I asked him about where he is sending her. Smart students from Narab school would go north to the main town for middle school where they can enroll in specialized classes and take a ton of private lessons. To my surprise, he told me that his eldest daughter, Seenam, will be staying here in Nanoi for middle school.

“There’s a lot of problems with sending your kids to the main town,” he said while brushing grains of rice off the table. “You can’t take care of them and they can be influenced negatively by their friends. When they are depressed some of them even get pregnant. I personally believed that diligence can get you anywhere. It doesn’t matter where you study as long as you work hard and have good ethics. Some kids from Nanoi actually got into the top universities in the country. So, I think it’s better to keep her here and personally make sure to nurture her in a way that she grows up to be a fine lady.”

The whole sibling squad: Seemai in front, Seenam (Watercolor) and Seethien

I think English was still regarded as the most important language to learn. P’Ben told me that his children take private lessons on Fridays and Saturdays for a couple of hours. I think the lessons paid off as his son in 2nd grade used the word “occupation” and could calculate large numbers (two digits) in English. Their private tutor used to work in Washington at the Thai embassy for ten years. When the tutor was bored with his job abroad, he returned home to offer private lessons in English. The fault with the Thai school system in rural areas, he said, was that they don’t really teach the phonetics. Sure, they teach “a, e, i, o, u” but most kids don’t know what sound “k + a” makes. A lot of kids may know how to say Tuesday in English but they can’t spell it. That’s why private lessons, which compensated for the schools’ fault, are so popular. A lot of the kids I talked to actually take private lessons.

Some kids are really oblivious while others are constantly waiting to snipe their friends.

Before I left, I received a message from a girl, Punsa, who identified herself to be the head of the English club at Narab School. She talked to me in English and I was very impressed by that. She tried really hard to converse with me in English. She told me that she was not sure whether to attend a competitive school (SiNan) in the main town.

“I am not sure,” she said. “I think I will be more diligent!”

“Why are you unsure?” I asked her.

“I think I’m not diligent enough.”

“Ah, I see.” I replied. She really wanted to use the word diligent. I hoped she didn’t just flip open a dictionary thinking “this word will impress him most!”

“Now I try to read a lot of book.”

“*books,” I corrected her. “What do you like to read?”

“Test prep. I’m not sure this vocabulary.”

“As in books that help you prepare for exams?”

“Yes.”

“I see. But why do you like them most?”

“It made me better.”

“Do you like English?” I changed the subject.

“Yes. I really like it.”

“Why do you like English?”

“Because it is important language of the world. Soon I’m gonna go to take extra tutorial class.”

“Ok good luck.”

I think I have never really know how hardworking some students actually are in the countryside. I can tell you that I was never this hardworking until I went to prep school. I had always believed that students in Bangkok are the ones who are crazy smart while the countryside is just a void. I had underestimated their diligence and I felt somewhat embarrassed by that. Nevertheless, these students still lack a lot of resources. There are no native English teachers here so the students’ pronunciation and grammar are often wrong. They still, however, want to learn more and become better. I said before that giving out candy is a good motivator for students to take our teaching seriously, but that’s not always the case. Some students pay attention, not just for the candy, but because they like the language itself. There is one girl that I taught in 4th grade who will be taking up the challenge at an English speech competition in the main town against 6th graders (because she is that good). The school never lacked talent, it lacked resources.

After school, everyone gathers to recite buddhist prayers.

That day, only 6th graders had to practice boy scouts marching.

One day, the math teacher was not there so we had to be substitute for a class. As a joke, we put some calculus problems up there to confuse the next teacher coming in. To our surprise, some 3rd graders came up to us wanting us to explain how it wor… — One day, the math teacher was not there so we had to be substitute for a class. As a joke, we put some calculus problems up there to confuse the next teacher coming in. To our surprise, some 3rd graders came up to us wanting us to explain how it works. We weren't able to explain implicit differentiation or chain rule to the kids so we gave them a quick crash course on algebra instead. They were enthralled by these "solve for x" problems for some reason.

One of our TAs getting dragged to teach in one of the classes

In Natsume Soseki’s novel Grass Pillow, the main character tries to ignore the humans as individual beings and portray them as figures “confined to the flat surface.” “Once you conceive them as leaping out of the painting,” he said, “you’ll find them bumping against you.” But as I looked out into the paddies, I think the intricate detail of rice planting, the dark gray smoke coming out of the tractor and the farmers’ puckered faces as they drink their homemade wine had its own artistic beauty. They have their own desires and thoughts and psychological complexity but all of that, rather than “bumping” against me, served as a fulfilling complement to the landscape. The combination of the serene scene where birds flying away from the paddies as the sun set behind the Southern mountains and the farmers riding their motorcycles home on a narrow dirt road gave a complete aesthetic picture of rural Thailand. This beautiful landscape could not exist without its people. In other words, both the landscape and humans, existing alongside each other, could be perceived as “art.”

Kids at a smaller elementary school nearby

I think I definitely became less attached to the allure of the social media world. A whole ecosystem of complex cultural behaviors were unfolding before me and if I found myself stuck in my own glass prison, I would definitely miss out. Unfortunately still, I don’t think I captured them all in my reflection. There were many times when I was lost myself in the landscape while staring out. The same landscape was never quite the same each morning. Some days the mountains would be covered with mist. The other with rain. And if I was lucky, the lush green summit would reveal itself on a sunny day. I felt a weaker urge to slip into my pocket for my phone.

TAs playing with kids. The kids were scolded later on for slacking and avoiding their morning tasks. They would always try to use the TAs as an excuse to ditch their posts.

These bars were probably the best investment the school made. Soccer here was chaos.

Before this project, I had always been obsessed about my future. What am I doing with my life? What can I do as a job? All those existential questions often come back to me wherever I am. However, I didn’t feel as much dread here. When I was totally immersed in talking, interacting and playing with the students, I didn’t really care about the future. I was living more in the present. Playing soccer on a small narrow concrete walkway, playing tag on a dusty backyard, childish activities were so pointless yet they make you forget about everything else. You don’t need to be leaving a mark on the world, you don’t need to be competing with others, you don’t need to worry about your future reputation. For the future and the past had no meaning. My present was to score that goal that would bring my team of 6th graders to the brink of victory (which I never did).

Students are assigned chores in the morning once they arrive at school. This group was in charge of cleaning the open area under the new building.

Kindergarten kids in traditional clothes

Don't worry, she's not actually alone. Her friends came in 3 seconds late.

I want to modify the question, “How can I add meaning to my own life?” It feels too self-centered. I think I want to change it to “How can I make other people’s lives meaningful as well as my own?” Perhaps I have answered that question or perhaps I am still exploring. This year’s project gave me a lot more substance. Maybe it was because I paid more attention. Perhaps I cared more about what people had to say.

How can I add meaning to my life? Maybe it’s not my own life I should be concerned about, but those I hold close, no matter how far away we live from each other, to my heart.

Reflection on Nan Project 2018

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