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Published: January 14th 2014
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I woke up today, at 5 am, to the sound of BLASTING Thai music. As if the music itself wasn't abrasive enough, after about 3 minutes the local animals started calling back, which created quite the Thai Symphony. I, like any rational human being, was pretty surprised by this and was walking around trying to figure out what was going on. No one else seemed bothered by it, and every time I'd ask a student what it was, they'd just shrug. I later found out that it's common practice to play music from 5-6am for 100 days after someone dies as a period of mourning. Looking forward to the next week of this....
We eventually got up, dressed and headed back to the pavilion for breakfast. Afterwards we caught a tractor to the Lao Khrang Village, a local village which migrated from Laos. The tractor required a crank to start, and we cruised at about 3 mph all the way to the village.
Once we got to the village we were greeted by a man who was our tour guide for the rest of the day. The entire tour was in Thai, so the rest of what you are
about to read is based strictly on my understanding of the Thai language and gesturing...so here we go.
Our first stop was a temple where we participated in a group prayer, then we headed to a museum. As soon as we entered, one of the towns people grabbed me and shuffled me into a corner and asked me to translate an inscription on a bottle. I was immediately presented with a pretty significant moral dilemma...should I tell them what the bottle actually said, which was "Registered Trademark, Made in Austria" or should I make up something exciting since it's in the museum and they are obviously pretty proud of it. Unfortunately I went with option A...where I quickly learned gesturing "Trademark" it pretty difficult...
Next we stopped at a local medicine shop. The lady who ran the shop made me try a drink, after she made an unhappy face and patted her stomach (soooo it cures stomach aches?). I took a tiny sip of what I can only assume was paint thinner. I thanked her, then ran away as quickly as possible.
We then stopped at a house where there was a woman weaving some sort of
clothe. Here we learned about the local clothes and how they are made. At some point, the women in the shop decided they had done enough talking and we moved onto the part of the day I like to call "how far can we push this"...where the Thai people keep making me do different things until I finally put an end to it. It started with them dressing me up in the local clothing... they chose clothes that would probably have been tight on a 80lb thai person and insisted I put them on. Obviously this had limited success. They then toted me around and made me pose around the shop. Here's a white person folding clothes, here's a white person using a loom, here's a white person holding a basket...after about 10 minutes I thanked them and then started taking everything off. I could tell they weren't quite done...but they allowed me to undress.
The afternoon activities included milling rice and palm braiding. Both I managed to escape from with limited attention.
For dinner we had local food while some of the villagers played instruments and sung. After we had finished eating, they insisted I get up
with them and dance "Thai Style" while they continued to sing. As you can guess this didn't go well. I tried my best, and kept a smile on...but I was clearly butchering it. They eventually put me out of my misery by starting a dance circle, something I could finally hold my own in.
Our day ended with a local ghost "question and answer" tradition, where we get to ask the local ghosts questions and they answer through one of the villagers who draws the answer in the dirt. I have no idea what questions were asked, but everyone seemed to laugh at the answers so it seemed like fun.
Its hard to believe 3 months ago I was sitting in a cubicle, and now I'm sitting on the floor of a stilted hut, learning a local village dance and song in the middle of central Thailand. I couldn't be more in love.
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