Sorry to those of you who’ve been asking for an update (i.e,. my dear cousin). We had our Thai Language final today, so now that that is over, I can hopefully devote more time to this, although I doubt things will slow down much. For our final, we had to give a five minute oral presentation (in Thai) in front of three Thai teachers, AND perform a 15 minute skit with a group (also all in Thai). Surprisingly, it wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be, but we did spend a lot of time studying and practicing. I’m really surprised at how much Thai I do understand – much more than I thought I would know after only 7 weeks. My conversations, though, are limited when talking outside the realm of the weather, ordering food, fruits, and numbers. After coming home from school, I usually feel pretty good about myself and my ability to communicate, that is, until I sit down to watch the nightly Thai soap opera at 9:00 pm with my Thai mom. For that hour I am completely entranced, trying to catch just one word that will clue me in on what is going on. I laugh or gasp occasionally so that my Thai mom will think I know what’s going on. Sometimes, though, I “strategically” laugh at an actual shocking part, and my cover is blown. Shockingly, my ability to gauge the mood of the Thai soap opera has not improved much over the past 7 weeks, so I’m still pretty sure she knows I’m a fake.
Speaking of my Thai family, I constantly am telling my friends at school funny stories about them, mostly about my younger brothers. My littlest brother’s favorite English word is “super,” and tries to use it in every sentence. This is a typical conversation we have in the car:
Me: “Tung, how was school today?”
Tung: “Super okay.”
Me: (laughing)
Only last night we had another memorable exchange. We have a small electronic keyboard in the house, and it has some demo songs on it that it plays and the keys light up so that you can press them and “learn the song.” Well, last night Tung was trying to learn one of the demo songs, which was Mozart’s Rondo Alla Turca. ‘How convenient!’ I thought to myself, since I learned that song years ago. Schemingly, I asked Tung if I could try. I sat down and played perfectly along with the demo, adding in the left hand part, which surprised him even more since those notes didn’t light up on the piano. Unfortunately, I didn’t think out my scheme well enough because he left very confused and thinking I had some magical powers since I couldn’t explain to him in Thai that I already knew the song and was playing a joke on him. I’m just hoping that tonight he doesn’t ask me to do the same thing, except with a different demo song that I don’t know. Then he, along with my Thai mom, will know that I’m a fake.
I think that in each blog entry I’ll start adding in a segment called “Only In Thailand.” It seems like I have numerous small and quotable cultural experiences but can’t find a place for them within the blog. So, I’m just going to start throwing them in. So…today’s “ONLY IN THAILAND” piece:
Last weekend 5 of my American friends and I went to a video rental shop to see if we could rent a movie to watch at someone’s house. Apparently, at Thai video rental shops you can rent not only movies, but also entire living rooms to watch them in. Upon learning this, we, of course, rented “Blood Diamond” along with the living room. It was literally a room upstairs, where I’m pretty sure the family that owns the video store uses. It was actually really nice – a flat screen TV and a nice couch. We basically rented America for two hours. Quite possibly one of the weirdest experiences ever was walking back downstairs after watching the movie. I felt like I was at home, and then walked downstairs only to find myself in a large room with about 10 Thai people staring at the 6 “farang”(foreigners) walking out from a hidden door at the back of the store. Actually…It may have been weirder for the other people in the store: Can you imagine being in Blockbuster’s, walking around trying to pick out a movie, and seeing six non-English speaking Asians emerge from a hidden door behind the “New Releases” section? I imagine I would be rather freaked out, and would probably never return to that Blockbuster’s again for fear that I was supporting some sketchy underground “Anime” film smuggling business. Maybe most video rental stores have already thought this unfortunate chain of events out, and that’s why they don’t rent out living rooms.