Jamison’s Misadventures In Asia

It’s been three months since my last posting, and in that time I’ve been to some new places and done plenty of different things.  I’ll let you taste some slices of the cake that was my summer….

Issan Travels

I travelled to Issan (the Northeast) twice this summer.  In my first trip, I visited Lindsey at her site before heading down to Big Rob’s site for an English Camp with high school students. 

Rob asked me to prepare some activities for the camp and informed me that these students had strong language skills.  Pulling my own weight, I arrived with two hour-long activities prepared only to find that Rob had nothing planned.  I was not the slightest bit bothered or surprised by this situation, for I was mostly just excited to try out my ‘Yoshimi’ lesson. 

I had been waiting for the proper opportunity to teach a listening activity using The Flaming Lips’ song, ‘Yoshimi Battle The Pink Robots’.  I had yet to encounter students whose English comprehension was developed enough to keep up with the song, but I thought this camp might be my chance, since Rob had assured me that these students were sharp.

Rob was wrong.  The Yoshimi activity was slow out of the gates–the students could barely understand the song, though with some translations and repeated listens, the students began to appreciate ‘Yoshimi’.  Before long, they were  singing along, arm in arm.  We capped off the activity by having the students draw posters depicting the song.  My favorite poster of the bunch now hangs in my room and features robots sporting pink heart underwear. 

Phi Tha Khon Mask Festival

At the beginning of July, I travelled to Loei province to attend the Phi Tha Khon Mask Festival in Dan Sai.  The Phi Tha Khon festival is unlike any other cultural event in Thailand and is only celebrated in the small town of Dan Sai.  The festival is rooted in a mix of Buddhist and local folk beliefs and takes place over three days.

I travelled to Dan Sai on the famed Chiang Rai–Nakhon Phanom busline, or as Jiggles calls it, the murder bus.  If one travels the entire length of the route, the trip would be more than 18 hours long.  Unfortunately, this bus company is not as adept in maintenance and quality control as some of its competitors.  To top it off, this bus is commonly filled beyond capacity, with people lining the center aisle, either standing, or sitting on the ground. 

The first seven hours of the trip went pretty well, mostly because the bus was not full.  Each stop along the way meant more passengers boarding, but it wasn’t until we reached Phitsanulok, a major crossroads, that the bus became reached seated capacity.  I sat in the last row on the left side of the bus.  I was not seated at the extreme rear–there was a bench in the back that had a center seat and two seats on the right.  An empty space for storage was directly behind my seat. 

At Phitsanulok, a family of five boarded the bus and filled the bench seat in the rear.  There were three adults and two small children.  Soon after we departed from Phitsanulok, the rocking of the bus carried me into a light sleep, the back of my reclined chair bouncing with each bump in the road.

Do you know those dreams where you’re falling, feeling every sensation of the drop, only to jolt awake and find yourself safe in your bed?  Early in the morning, riding the bus to Dan Sai, I experienced the exact opposite of the ‘falling dream’.  I was in the midst of a forgettable dream when I was jolted awake by the sensation of falling.  And falling I was.  The back of my chair had given under my weight and the repeated bouncing motion of the bus.  I was able to stop my momentum before I hit anything, but the back of the chair fell freely.

Bewildered, I turned around in to find the woman behind me attending to the child across her lap with a look of concern.  The back of the chair rested touching her thigh, not quite reaching the floor, being still loosely connected to its base.  Apparently the chair had hit the head of the small child, who I would guess was between one and two years old.  The child was out cold, and the mother was shaking him to try to wake him up.  The mother was undoubtedly worried about the kid, but she was not reacting with the urgency or hysteria that one might expect from a parent of a child who just received a head blow a chair falling underneath the weight of a 200 pound man. 

I lifted the back of the chair up, and with the assistance of the man seated beside me, held it in place.  I was in an awkward and uncomfortable position, twisting myself around to hold the chair up.  I let go of my side, confident that the man next to me could hold the back up while I readjusted myself.  Inexplicably, he let go of the chair soon after I did, so it fell backwards again, hitting the kid in the head, again.

To this second blow, the family reacted with looks of shock and disbelief, that, could they be translated into words, would most likely have said, ‘What the hell is wrong with you?’.  At this point, they were slapping the boy on his cheeks, and he was responding and seemed to be okay.  Apparently he was just a heavy sleeper.  It was only another five minutes to my destination, so we laid the back of the chair down, away from the mother and her child, and I left the bus in an outpouring of apologies and sheepish looks. 

Despite the rough start to my weekend, the Phi Tha Khon festival was a fun weekend, filled with masked Thai people drunkenly dancing in parades, on stage, and endlessly around a temple.  The dancing became less coordinated though perhaps more spirited as the weekend wore on.  On our final evening in Dan Sai, I graced the festival stage for a fine karaoke performance along with Tex, a PCV from the new group that arrived in January.  We were accompanied by a group of ten year old girls who were dressed in traditional Thai garments and danced in the background while we sang ‘Like A Prayer’.  Tex served as choreographer for our second set of dancers, a bunch of kids donning Phi Tha Khon masks and costumes.  Despite my poor vocal performance, the masked kids brought ‘Against All Odds’ to life, and they finished the song with a beautifully synchronized twirl move.

Up Next

There are plenty more stories from the summer, such as my failed attempt to compete in an air guitar contest at a bar in Bangkok or my five-hour long mission to secure a case of precious BeerLao Dark, but it’s time for me to bring this posting to close.  Tomorrow my friend, Carolyn, and I head to Malaysia for ten days, with Ryan and Jordan joining us on Friday.  Soon after our arrival in Kota Kinabalu, we plan to climb Mount Kinabalu, then head to the beach for some diving and relaxing.  We’ll hit Kuala Lumpur for two nights before we head back to Bangkok. 

I hope everyone is doing well and had an enjoyable Labor Day weekend.  If I haven’t heard from you in a while, drop a quick hello email and let me know what you’re up to.  Be sure to get out and support the A’s down the stretch.

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