Have I mentioned I hate shopping?

In 30 minutes it will be the first day of August. It will also be the first day of our "mandatory" conversation classes for the first year English students. Basically, the next five weeks are going to be busy as heck. In an attempt to stretch my weekend just a leeeetle bit longer, I'm blogging. There's a lot I've been intending to blog about, but I guess I just haven't been in the mood. 

Last week was midterms week, which for the students meant a great deal of stress and work while for me it meant a sort of holiday from teaching most of my classes. sort of a calm before the storm. Of course it also meant that I put off actually writing my midterm for "symbolic and critical reasoning" until the last minute. Procrastinators of the world unite tomorrow! But when I actually buckled down and tackled the thing, I must say I was rather proud of the result. My students will never know or appreciate the amount of tender-loving care I devoted to crafting their midterm. The time I spent coming up with reasonable and gradable questions, how I carefully considered everything we'd covered so far and what I thought was most important or what I had taught the most clearly, how I searched the web for identifiable examples of different fallacies or interesting arguments. That midterm is almost like my child. 


This is only the second time I've written a test and while I'm copying the format Ozzie used, I still feel anxious about if it's a reasonable level of difficulty, or understandable. I was even concerned about whether it would take too long or be ridiculously short. Then, afterwards, I have to actually grade the things which is another ordeal. Multiple choice questions are easy, but short answer, of which I had many, are another animal. It's often a question of how generous I want to be, and trying to be sure that all the students are being held to the same standard. But it's over and now I just have to get through the last half of the course, for which I have done absolutely zilch. Oh well, I'll get there. One powerpoint slide at a time. 

This weekend there was a free film festival being put on by the European Council or something like that. I love international films, so I headed over there with Anisha, Eric and his friend Mike to see a Polish film about a magic tree. Okay yes, it sounds rather ridiculous but it was actually an extremely cute, family-friendly movie of the kind that I haven't seen in a very long time. It managed to be interesting to adults without the adult references or humor that many kids' movies in America rely on these days. After this I attempted to shop and failed dismally. More on that later. Kevin, Vicky and sarah's friend Hanna joined us for a second film, "Exit Through the Gift shop" which is a great film about graffiti artists. Or at least, it's supposed to be documentary about graffiti artists. It's kind of hard to explain, but I was thoroughly entertained. It's directed by the notorious U.K. street artist Banksy, who has done  crazy things like create art or graffiti or whatever you want to call it on the Israeli West Bank wall. Anyhow, if you enjoy an off-beat sort of humor and/or think the modern art world is a bit of a joke, you'd probably enjoy "Exit Through the Gift shop." And that is my fifth grade report style review of the film festival. 

If any of you are still with me, the funny cultural stuff starts here. My clothes are getting increasingly gross and the people who interact with me are probably tired of looking at the same handful of outfits. I've needed to do some major shopping for a while. I've been trying to replace some of my stained, unraveling and/or torn clothing with new items, but I've been largely unsuccessful. see, I hate shopping for clothes in the states. I have a very difficult time finding clothes that I would actually want to wear. Unfortunately the problem is about ten times worse in Thailand. After an unsuccessful day of window shopping between films on saturday, I resolved to go to Tesco (kind of like Target, but smaller and not as flash) and really get serious. so early this afternoon I drove over there, the first task on my mind being to get some lunch. 


I still haven't really gotten over my dissatisfaction with Thai food so after perusing the food court for a while and with much guilt I caved and went to the one American fast food chain in the store: KFC. I don't really like KFC. I don't usually go there in the states. But a chicken sandwich sounded like heaven and... and... I caved alright! I'm sorry about all those poor little chickens living miserable lives in factory farms. I'm sorry to have supported an American corporation's invasion of Thailand. I'm sorry for my failure to embrace Thai culinary arts and my willingness to choose unhealthy fast food over any number of cultural food experiences. But I bought that chicken sandwich and heaven strike me down I enjoyed it! I enjoyed it while slouching as far down in my seat as I could while hoping that no vegetarian or anti-corporate-America foreigners would see me. 

My crime committed, I felt sufficiently fueled to face the daunting task of shopping for clothes. I looked for almost two hours and found one pair of shorts that I liked and that fit me. I looked at just about every item of clothing in the store. But for one thing, everything is sized to fit women the size of a pixie. I am just small enough to be capable of fitting into XXL clothing, or maybe XL if I'm lucky and have an empty stomach. The thing is, not all Thai women are actually that small. sure, on average there are a lot more women with petite figures, but I am by no means a giantess in comparison. It makes me feel sorry for truly full-figured women living here. But beyond the difficult sizing issues, the clothes here just don't suit me. T-shirts for instance. I have found a few solid-colored casual t-shirts that I can wear, but if I want anything cute or more interesting, I would have to buy something with grammatically incorrect English and many hearts printed all over it. But casual clothes aren't a huge problem. It's teaching clothes, the required skirt and nice top, that have made life difficult. I would love a few more nice blouses to mix with the skirts I have. I've had to throw out one of my old ones already. But all of the blouses here have overwhelming flower prints and weird frills down the front. Anne of Green Gables would be in heaven considering all the puffed sleeves. When it's not frills, it's oversized bows, or transparent lace that rather defeats the purpose of a shirt. Fake pearls and sparkles that wouldn't look out of place on a ballet costume are also a feature. Animal prints are common. And I've never seen so many polka dots in my entire life. 

The thing is, Thai women can pull it off. It doesn't look at all out of place, especially if they're small and thin. But my white and pink complexion isn't really flattered by the color palettes and patterns in the designs here. If I wore those outfits, I'd look a bit like a lost circus performer. I'll see Thai women wearing these outfits and they look positively classy. But it is beyond my power. 

speaking of my rather noticeable whiteness, as I was leaving the store a little boy riding in a shopping cart spotted me. With the innocence of youth, his eyes grew wide and and he pointed at me with a happy shout of surprise. It made me smile and I waved to him. His grandfather chuckled too and nodded a polite "sawatdi-krap" to me as he passed. Even though Chiang Mai has a pretty high number of expats, I still draw attention sometimes, especially from kids. 

The truth is, white skin is seen as the beauty ideal in Thailand. I'm not sure white and red skin is considered as attractive, which is my general tinge, but light skin, blue eyes and "Western" noses are considered beautiful. some Thai women get tinted contact lenses and at least half the beauty products here promise to "whiten" skin. With their characteristic bluntness about personal appearance, I've heard my students tease their friends about being "dark" or "black." Actually, racism seems like a bit of a problem. There aren't many actual black people here and a common perception seems to be that all black people are dangerous or untrustworthy. I've had a couple of surprising and uncomfortable conversations along those lines. But with regards to the teasing, it's hard to know how to react appropriately. It's the kind of thing that wouldn't fly in the u.s. due to our hypersensitivity about self-esteem. But here, students call each other fat or ugly with apparent good humor. I can't really tell if it's actually hurtful or not. 

And such are a few of my recent cultural observations. I could write more, but it's late and I have a big day tomorrow.