A Thai Christmas Party

Tonight was my teacher's family's Christmas party. It was quite an ordeal. Her dad is a government official and they are quite well-to-do. There were about 150 people at the house. It was quite fun, that is until the 'game' time started.

You see, Thais love to do contests for prizes. They call for random people to come up front, compete, and have a jolly good time. I usually don't mind doing stupid things in front of people but the grouping this time bothered me. They called for the single people to come up. I completely understood what they were saying in Thai and was not about to draw attention to this but my teacher ran across the yard, grabbed my arm and dragged me up front. Slowly, others joined as well but, of course, they did make a big deal out of a beautiful farang joining in on the games.

So, not only am I embarrassed that I'm one of the oldest single people there but the MCs are asking everyone all of these questions (and of course, I'm not all that comfortable in the Thai language). To make matters worse, they had rented a sound system. Now, sound systems in Thailand are pretty nasty. So, everything that is being said is filtered through mass crackling noises. When it got to my turn to compete, I told them my name, where I was from, etc. and then did the little blub of the game. This group of people really seem to like saying 'wan chrisamaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa . . . .' (if you can't guess, it's 'Christmas') for as long as you can. The person who holds it the longest, of course, wins. The over-dramatic guy in charge of counting fell to his knees as I kept going -- he counted to 72! I got a lot of laughs and a lot of applause because that, by far, won!

When they handed me the prize the the MC guy asked me 'diijai mai kap?" (which means, 'are you happy?'). But, with the crinkling of the sound system I heard a very distinct, 'biijai mai kap?' ('bii' is 'years'). I thought he was asking me something about my age. So, I just stood there staring and trying really, really hard to figure out what 'biijai' meant! My teacher's boyfriend (also an MC) leaned over to me and said it in English to save me any more dead-air time but I definitely felt like a fool!

Thai's don't open gifts in front of people -- it's a way to save face. So, I opened my prize when I was waiting at a long stoplight on my way home. I got a juicer!! It's something I will definitely use but would never be able to afford something that 'frivolous' for myself! So, that made the horrors of the little game worthwhile. Here's a picture of the 72-count wan chrisamaaaaa..... juicer. I cracked up for the longest time when I opened it!!

Changes are a'coming

My, how time flies! I’m sorry I haven’t gotten on here in a while. Sooo much has been going on!! I can’t believe that it’s almost Christmas! The last couple days have been a little colder (I wore my jean jacket all day on Monday) so that helps a little. The king’s birthday was a couple weeks ago and for it, white “Christmas” lights are hung everywhere. It looks beautiful and that definitely helps put one in the Christmas mood. I only have one more person to buy for and I know basically what I want to buy – I only need to find the time to get over there and purchase the gift.

I’m done working at Home of Joy as of next Tuesday. I will definitely miss the kids. But, luckily it’s not a forever goodbye – I will be able to stop by and play with them on my own time.

On Wednesday, I leave for 2 ½ weeks in Australia. The family is meeting at Joey’s for a late Christmas. I’ve wanted to go to Australia since I was about 3 so between that and getting to spend time with my family – I’m REALLY excited!!

When I get back to Thailand, I’ll spend a couple days in Chiang Mai before going to Chiang Rai (3 hours north of here) for my DTS. I’m getting really excited about that too!! There are going to be 35 students from 11 different countries!

So, with all of these things happening soon, I’m having to pack up my apartment with 3 different piles – Australia, DTS, and store in Chiang Mai. I have friends who just moved into their own place and need furniture so they’re going to use my furniture and store my other things for me while I’m gone. Wow! It’s been a just little hectic!

On Tuesday, Home of Joy treated ½ the staff to the big 3 month flower expo here in town (the other ½ is going tomorrow). It was soooo beautiful!! I took what seemed like millions of pictures! Christine and I (and hopefully Khruu Tan as well) will go again when I am in town next month.

Well, I should go – I’m off to my last Thai lesson for 6 months! Oooo, that’s weird to think about too!

Another one down!

So, I got another 97% on my Thai test!!!!!!!!! It was really difficult though because translations were a mess (I had to translate into Thai from English -- when the English is written by people who don't speak the language well, it's hard to translate because sometimes the English doesn't even make sense!!) and I had to remember how specifically to answer the questions (I couldn't just answer - 'Yes, I would like to eat that' but I had to remember, in this lesson, I learned how to say 'Yes, I would like to eat this, this and this with you but please wait right here'). So, I had a miserable headache once it was done.

But, now I'm going headfirst into module 3. Yay, yay, yay!!