Thanksgiving in Thailand

Thanksgiving is probably my favorite holiday of the year. It was definitely a little sad spend a Thanksgiving away from home. It was weird to think about my family doing all of the normal preparations and getting together. But I actually did get to celebrate in Chiang Mai. 

For one of my classes, we have to teach some english classes as part of our fulfillments. We had to teach two sessions. For the first one I taught a group of women studying in the nursing school at Payap. They were a great group and knew a really good amount of English already. We pretty much just practiced conversation with them. We talked about appropriate language for different settings, etc. For my second session, an opportunity came up to teach a class about Thanksgiving to some Thai students studying English at Payap. I taught the class with two other American girls that are in the Thai studies program with me. We produced a slideshow that discussed the history of Thanksgiving, how it is celebrated today, what the meal is like, and some of the traditions surrounding Thanksgiving. It was funny to try to explain all of the common dishes we eat. Cranberry sauce and stuffing were both particularly difficult to describe. They seemed kind of alarmed at our descriptions. We also made sure to talk about football, the Macys day parade, and of course--Black Friday, which they all found pretty amusing. Describing the holiday made me realize how typically American a lot of things about Thanksgiving are. Eating a lot, lazing around watching football, spending the whole next day at the mall shopping... so I think I learned a few things about our country also. At the end of the class we also made 'hand turkeys'--the things where you trace your hand on a piece of paper and then decorate it to make it into a turkey. They did really well with that... some of them really went into detail with their decorations and designs. 

On Thursday, our dormitory held a big Thanksgiving dinner where many professors, students, administrators and international students came to eat. The food was pretty good. Except we all almost lost it when they said that they had run out of mashed potatoes. But the turkey, pumpkin pie, and cranberry sauce were amazing. The Thai studies students were asked to put together a short presentation about Thanksgiving so my friend Sarah and I recycled our slideshow and gave a short little talk. 

To be honest, it was a really nice way to spend Thanksgiving. It definitely wasn't my dining room, my family, my dad's stuffing or my mom's pie crust but it was different and really enjoyable. 

Lisu Village Stay

After the couple of days we spent at UHDP we left to spend a couple of days in a Lisu village. It was not too long of a drive and very beautiful. The village where we stayed was is Doi Lan at the top of this mountain. To get there we had to snake up this pretty steep incline. You could definitely feel the temperature change the moment we stepped out of the car. Lisu people are an ethnic minority group that live throughout the hills of Thailand and some surrounding countries in Southeast Asia. Since they live on Thai land they are Thai. But they have their own language, culture and beliefs. Ethnic minority groups in Thailand tend to suffer from a lot of discrimination, inequalities and poverty. Access to healthcare and substantial education is often difficult. A woman named Atome came with us on the trip. She teaches and Payap and has written a lot about this. She lived in this particular Lisu village for 6 years. So she knows the language and everyone in the village. They love her and were so happy to have her bring some students to stay.

My friend Angela and I stayed together with a woman who came and pointed to the 2 of us, picked up our bags, and hurried us off to her house. She was great, we called her "Mae" which means mother in thai. The children are taught Thai in their small village school so most of the younger generations know Thai. But she also knew Thai very well so that's how we communicated throughout the trip. Mae had 3 children-- 2 sons and one daughter I believe. Two of her children had moved to the city to find work but one of her sons stayed home. She joked about marrying one of us off to him. He was cute but I don't know about marriage. It's really common today amongst the younger generation for children to go to the city to find work. They usually only end up being able to acquire low-paying jobs because many actually do not have thai identification cards... which is kind of a long story. Anyway, it was interesting to be in this village that consists primarily of middle-aged, elderly and young children. There were two little girls that hung around my house all of the time. My mae would feed them and care for them but we were pretty sure that they were not related at all. It is so cool because there was such little presence of ownership in the village. All of the kids would just run around and then get scooped up and put on the backs of different women. It was such a compact community.

The food our mae made throughout our stay was hands-down the best food that I have had in Thailand. All of the vegetables were fresh picked and so tasty and the rice was a different, more grainier grain. We also had this amazing black sticky rice that is popular to eat in the North. The kitchen was a large room with a cold cement floor. We would sit and eat together on these tiny stools around a low round table with all of the dishes laid out. There was a wash basin in the corner, a small stove and a mattress in the other corner. The bathroom was outside of the house in a small cement hut and the shower consisted of a bucket with cold water. Our bedroom was nice... but at night it would get so so cold.

I shared with her some pictures of my family and friends. She seemed to enjoy that. Then she brought out these huge photo albums and showed a bunch of old and new photos of her family and the village, etc. She had this amazing photograph of a little girl standing in a beautiful poppy field. They used to harvest opium on their land in the 80s and these hills were covered with miles and miles of purple, red and white poppies. It was very lucrative for them. Some would become addicted to smoking (mostly men) but mostly it was just a source of profit for these villagers. But then the previous PM Thaksin had his 'war on drugs' in which he ordered military to shoot-on-sight anyone he thought looked like they might be suspicious. This created a lot of resentment amongst hill tribe villagers. Our mother talked about how one of her siblings had died from an opium addiction but also talked about how three men from the village had been murdered during the war on drugs. It was pretty interesting and sad. 

The next day we walked through the farmland to this open field where they were growing cabbage, celery, tomatoes and some other crops. We spent the whole day there preparing a meal and a chicken to sacrifice for a ceremony. The people in this village practice a mixture of buddhism and animism so there is a lot of belief in forest spirits and ghosts but also there are touches of buddhism throughout a lot of their customs and rituals. There were very intent on us drinking their local rice whiskey which was very good but extremely strong. Even a small shot glass size of it puts you in sort of this warm and fuzzy daze. So we spent the whole day in this field laying around in this cabbage field under the hot sun in a whiskey daze. 

That night they had a party for us at this house on top of the hill. They dressed us up in their Lisu garb which is incredible. The women wear really vibrant colors of shiny velvet material that are sewn together into these long dresses with black velvet pants underneath. It looks so beautiful on them with their dark skin and jet black hair. It looked a tad different on us foreigners but it was fun to come together like this. There was a big meal, Lisu dancing, Lisu music and of course, more whiskey. It was a fun and very strange night. Strange because I had this weird thing happen where a tripped over a cord and when I went to plug it back in, I was electrocuted! It was so strange because I didn't even touch the outlet and I wasn't wet but my whole body kinda shook for only for a second. It really freaked me out. It was crazy because I looked up after sitting around and everyone was crowded around me looking at me in all of these outfits. Pretty bizarre... I rested for a while but felt better by the end of the night. 

We said goodbye to our families on Monday. So basically I would say that nothing that happened that weekend was an experience I have ever had before. Pretty eye and heart-opening. They were such welcoming and warm people. It was a great last group trip. Now its about a month more of class and such until I meet my family in Chiang Mai. I am pretty excited. That's about all for now. 

Here's a link to some pictures from the trip:

http://s438.photobucket.com/albums/qq110/emilyfwolff/UHDP%20and%20Lisu%20Village/

UHDP trip

Last week we embarked on our final Thai studies trip. It included a two-day stay at a place called the Upland Holistic Development Center (UHDP). They work mostly with ethnic minority villages around Chiang Rai province to help them practice sustainable, affordable and eco-friendly methods of rural development. They have a center with a few acres of land where they research different techniques of farming and cultivation. We stayed 2 nights there. The first night we got a basic tour of the grounds and learned about the different plants they grow and work that is done on a daily basis. The entire next day was centered around a giant pig. First thing in the morning, we followed some workers out to a small bamboo table next to a huge caged pig. They informed us that this would provide our meals throughout the rest of our stay. I won't get into the details but basically we watched the whole process. It was amazing to watch all of these men (there were about seven of them) go through this process of shaving, butchering, and dividing up the pig, etc. (sorry to be so blunt) They hardly talked about who would do what, they all just jumped right in and the everything flowed so naturally and efficiently. It is pretty uncommon anymore for these villages to kill such a large pig like that but it was like these men just had the knowledge of how to do it in their blood. I realized that I had never really seen that process from beginning to end before. It was pretty real and a little traumatizing. But that is definitely where our bacon and our bbq ribs come from. I am not a huge meat eater and usually try to avoid pork if I can so I had a pretty tough time when it was served for lunch, dinner and the next day's breakfast. But I guess you have to realize that everything goes full circle that way. Later that day we cut down some huge bamboo stocks and made a northern thai delicacy by filling each 'bong' (thats what the small sections are called in thai) with sticky rice and coconut milk. They were fired and served at dinner that night. I preferred that over the pork for sure.

trip to Mae Sot

Last week, the Thai studies program took a trip to a place called Mae Sot. It is about 5 hours from Chiang Mai and a part of Tak Province. Mae Sot is right on the border of Thailand and Burma. It is largely a Burmese town because refugees and immigrants have set up their lives there. So there is ton of Burmese food and writing and stores everywhere. The political situation in Burma (Myanmar) is not very good. It is ruled by a ruthless regime that has completely stripped people of their human rights and has basically sought to extinguish anyone who does not comply. There are many ethnic minorities throughout the country that are especially targeted and are continuously forced out of their homes and villages, becoming IDPs or 'internally displaced peoples'. The army basically invades these villages of Karen people along the border (near Mae Sot), raping and shooting, burning down villages and planting land mines around the ruins to ensure that people won't dare to return. These people have very few choices. They either end up in forced labor camps, refugee camps, or they illegally migrate into Thailand where they face poverty, poor working conditions, and discrimination in many cases. Mae Sot is an area where there are many local organizations and NGOs that are working to resist oppression and assist those impacted. So our trip this weekend allowed us to meet many people working in various fields each with different histories and stories. 

We left last Thursday and pretty much drove all day until we reached Mae Sot. We had the incredible opportunity to have dinner with the Karen National Union leader. He works on behalf of the Karen State (an ethnic minority) and his union has been a major force of opposition against the SPDC Burmese army. It was interesting to hear him speak because he has been involved for a very long time and he seemed so fearless despite the fact that there are many who would love to see him gone. 

The next day we started out by having breakfast at a Burmese tea shop. One of the professors with us on the trip, Win Min, is an activist and scholar. He lived in Mae Sot for a while but grew up in Burma and has been a major player in the fight for a free Burma. So he has many connections in the area and he was the one who coordinated a lot of our weekend. This place was great... Burmese food kinda tasted like a fusion of Indian and Thai food to me. They gave us a ton of freshly made nan bread and then there was this chickpea dip sort of thing that was so delicious. And then they also had Burmese tea which was amazing. The owner was so nice and lively... one of his waiters was a boy who looked like he was maybe around 12 or 13 years old but he had this crazy loud, booming voice and he would call out each of the orders running around. It was really great. After breakfast we headed over to the Karen Department of Health and Welfare. The man who spoke to us told us how difficult but also how important it is to provide healthcare to Karen people because the Burmese government doesn't provide them with anything.  He said that communicable diseases, malnutrition and pregnancy risks are their primary issues that they treat. It was interesting because blamed not only the Burmese government but the Thai government as well for refusing to recognize the right of these people to healthcare. 

Next we went to visit an NGO called BGET- Border Green Energy Team. They work in villages doing all sorts of projects like setting up solar panels or hydro-powered electricity systems. It was definitely a new perspective and approach than what I have read about or seen as of yet. The craziest thing about this visit to BGET was that I ran into a woman who went to Bard! She graduated the year before I came to Bard so I never knew her. And to make the coincidence even more outrageous we figured out that when she was a student she began the project that I know lead with a couple of other women at Bard. She was one of the founding members of the project I lead called the "Children's Expressive Arts Project". I have always heard things about her and had seen some pictures of her but I had never met her. (she is like a celebrity to me!) So we were able to talk about mutual friends and I caught her up on the news about everyone. She also was in the dance department which is my second home at Bard so we got to talk about that as well. It was tooooo weird, but absolutely wonderful and it was so refreshing to talk to someone who had so many of the same strong ties that I do from home. Anyway, she is in grad school now in California now and is doing a semester long internship with BGET and she is focusing on hydro-powered energy. 

After that crazy encounter we next went to visit the Mae Tao Clinic for immigrants and refugees. We were given a guided tour by a wonderful woman who had been working there for a very long time. This place was amazing... it is difficult to even describe but basically it was a cluster of small facilities and rooms for all sorts of illnesses and health issues. We walked by one room where there were these 5 doctors who were foreigners who had come for a week to treat people with eye problems. There were large groups of mostly elderly people sitting on small mats waiting to see these doctors for eye surgeries. We walked past another room where there were 3 newborn babies who had been orphaned and left at the pregnancy ward. Another room we went into provided prosthetics for amputees and people who had lost limbs due to land mines.  After that we ran into Dr. Cynthia Muang who began the clinic in 1989. She is considered the Mother Theresa of Burma so it was such an honor to meet her. 

Next we went to the headquarters of the Assistance Association of Political Prisoners. This group works to assist Burmese political prisoners and their families, collect data and information about the situation of political prisoners and works with international groups like the Human Rights Watch. There were 3 speakers there who were all political prisoners at one time--all serving around 3-7 years in prison simply for being a part of the resistance movement on Thailand. They were very generous in telling their stories and explaining about the current situation of political prisoners. Burmese prisons are internationally known to be some of the worst institutions. These people talked about the physical and mental torture they went through and the horrific conditions under which they lived. It was amazing to sit there and watch them recount their experience without crying or breaking down. They talked about how thy could only leave their cell for one hour a day and see sunlight and how they weren't even allowed to read books. I think it must be therapeutic for them to tell their stories to others... but I also can't fathom how difficult it would be. 

The next day we traveled to a refugee camp about an hour away that was right on the Burma border. There was a worry that we might not be let in because it just depends on who is sitting guard that day but one woman who was a Karen graduate of Payap had a connection with a teacher at the camp which helped us get in. As we drove along the road approaching the camp there were seemingly infinite clusters of small bamboo huts packed around the lowlands below this mountain. It just kept going on and on. Just over the mountain was Burma. To get to the school we had to take a little trek on this dirt path. When we got there the teacher led our whole group onto the stage where we sat facing a group of about 200 Karen, college-age refugees. We just kind of stared at each other while we waited for everyone to get settled and I wondered about what each of their stories were and what they thought of us sitting on this stage above them. They sang a couple of songs for us which were extremely powerful... they had beautiful voices and harmonies. We sang a little song for them too but it wasn't nearly as impressive. After that we took a tour of the camp... I was actually a little surprised about the conditions of the people leaving there.  There was electricity and internet and little shops dispersed throughout. But on the whole, coming to a refugee camp is often the last resort for these people because they don't want to leave their homes and communities. Many of the people there live away from their families because they have been displaced. When we were leaving this man approached me... he was probably about 50 years old and had an american flag wristband and a pepsi bag slung around his shoulder. He just took my hand and explained that he was imprisoned for 9 months because he had contacts with the US government. He said that he had met Jenna Bush and that he had the cell phone number of the white house. He also mentioned that he liked McCain better than Obama (this was pre Obama's win) because McCain was older and deserved to get president because he might not have another chance. He also liked McCain better because he was a prisoner as well. It was quite an interesting perspective. Then he told me that he loves freedom. I just listened, he might have been a little off of his rocker but who wouldn't be after a life like his? 

That pretty much concluded our trip. The next day we drove back to Chiang Mai and didn't get back until late Sunday night. I felt completely drained... there was a lot to process and digest. It has taken me all week to simply garner the energy to write about an experience like I had last weekend. I didn't know if writing it down could do justice to what I learned and saw. I know this was a long one but I hope that you were able to bear with me. 

I only have about a month and a half left of my semester... how the h-e-double toothpicks did that happen?

Here's some more pictures:

http://s438.photobucket.com/albums/qq110/emilyfwolff/Mae%20Sot/