Long Mae Ping

On Saturday morning I woke up to a call from my advisor at work named "Malinee" saying that she had heard about my burn and wanted to know if I needed anything or wanted to go the doctor. I thanked her and said that I thought I would be okay but that I would tell her if I needed anything. (Yet again, more proof of how amazingly nice and generous these women I work with are). In the afternoon I met Cruu Bakeauw at the school and we drove together to the temple, or 'Wat', in downtown Chiang Mai where she goes every weekend to practice local music. Beside the main building at the temple there was a beautiful cemetery. Cruu Bakeauw told me that inside these white, ornate structures the ashes of past royalty and important monks were buried. The actual temple itself was huge. It is one of the largest I have seen yet--and I have seen many temples here. When we walked inside there was a group of people sitting on the ground underneath various large buddha statues with their instruments. People either had a 'seung'- a the small guitar-type instrument I am learning, a "saw u"- a 2 string fiddle that uses a bow and has a coconut shell body, or a small wooden flute. The people there were of all ages. There was an old man who must have been about 75 or 80 years old sitting eager to begin in the front and sitting next to me was a couple of young boys. I was the only "farang" (foreigner) at the class, beside one little girl who was a "klung" child or half-thai, half-farang. A woman next to me asked if I was her mother. I shook my head...

We sat practicing and fiddling around until the instructor, Cruu At, arrived. He was probably in his mid-30s and had a long ponytail thatreached all the way down to his butt. He was very energetic and expressive and I am guessing he was pretty funny as well because everyone around me kept laughing at the things he would say. (I could pick up a few words here and there but for the most part I was reading body language and watching throughout the lesson. I am used to this by now though.) Before we began playing, he took everyone's instruments and tuned them. Then we all turned toward the Buddha and he led a series of chants. Even though, again, I cannot understand a word that is said, I love Buddhist chanting... there is something about the tones and the words that sort of lull you into a little meditation. We started with the song I had been practicing called "Long Mae Ping". It is a song about the Ping River which runs straight through Chiang Mai. I kind of fumbled through because the tempo was much faster I had practiced it. Then he took a small group of us aside (everyone whose first lesson it was) and broke down the basics. A woman who told me she was a teacher at the bilingual school in town helped to translate what he explained which was so nice and helpful. The teacher kept saying that when you can sing it, then you can play it. So first he had us sing the notes, following along with the thai characters for "do re mi fa sol la ti do". I could do this easily, but it took me a while to really get comfortable with the playing. At the end we all came together to play some more and before departing we again prayed to the Buddha. 

I couldn't stop thanking Bakeauw for bringing me along. She encouraged me to come back any weekend I am free. Hopefully I can practice enough to get through the whole song without mistakes for next time. We'll see...