Ringing in the New Year - Thai Style
To begin, celebrating holidays in another country is weird, not in a bad way, just … different. Things have been so hectic and crazy that I barely noticed or even realized I was ‘missing’ the holidays at home. Which in many ways is a blessing, as we know I can be a stickler for traditions, and it was nice to be distracted and excited about new things, especially this time of year. The WorldTeach Volunteers were able to all get together on Christmas this year since it was a Saturday, otherwise we would have had to teach and get together on another day to celebrate. At a meeting earlier in the month a large group of us pulled names for a Secret Santa and we all agreed on doing a Yankee Swap as well, or for some, only. Everyone also offered other potluck dished and dessert, making this a ridiculous feast of American, Thai, and Vietnamese treats. We all found a way to Rita’s adorably decorated home at Chok Amnuay school, thanks in part to her students as well as her host family, and celebrated Christmas the way any family would. LOTS of eating, fireworks, scheming, laughing, and movie. It was almost like being back at orientation, with everyone sleeping in 2 rooms except that this time we has no mats or mattresses and some people opted to just sleep outside. The weirdest part of actually Christmas day for me was that I was wearing a t-shirt and shorts and eating corn on the cob, while listening to Christmas music. It may sound weird to some but I would much rather be freezing and wishing for snow on Christmas day. But I’ll continue … This week of teaching was also filled with dance practices, as I would be performing a Thai dance on New Year’s Eve with the 4 student teachers at ChoomChonNongHee, and New Year’s parties. New Year’s is celebrated in Thailand more than Christmas so everyone has a New Year’s dinner or party just like Americans would all have Christmas parties. Earm and Sumet had a party at their house on Sunday night, Monday and Tuesday I had dance practice until about 6 (I would leave for school in the morning and not be dropped off at home until it was dark), Wednesday I usually get home around 2 but instead I was driven straight to NongHee to practice, then I got home in time to be picked back up by people from PhonTan to go to the New Year’s dinner, then Thursday I also went straight to NongHee after teaching at PhonTan, then after we finished practicing and trying our outfits on, as they had been picked up that day, I was informed we were going to a wedding for the daughter of one of the teachers at NongHee… well a dinner for a wedding that we were invited to at 7am on Dec. 31st but we were going to be too busy setting up for the party at the school that we opted to go to a dinner the night before … so Earm, Sumet, and Kerry went to the dinner with all the other teachers from PhonTan and some other guests, confusing I know, and then Thursday was the night Michelle’s school was having their New Year’s party, so I got dropped off at home and then walked over to where the party was on campus, since Michelle was being asked a million times where I was ... Now on to Friday. I got picked up around 7am to go to NongHee to help set up for the party, including staple gunning fabric around the bottom of the stage, and basically using fabric to decorate everything, and I watched some Takaw games and a volleyball game and then after lunch began the process of hair and make-up for the dance. Thai dancing involves a very serious amount of make-up and hair spray – if my years of dance competitions were actually this serious, I don’t know that we would have survived. So neither the hair salon, nor the girl who was going to do our makeup was ready when we were … obviously. This meant that I hung out at one of the student teacher’s houses eating fruit until it was time to go back over to the salon. I got my hair done – which involved teasing three front pieces, hair spraying, blow drying, and pinning them into place, then teasing out and spraying my curls into a giant ‘bun’ on the top of my head.
Then I was carted back over to the house where our makeup was getting done. Villa, the dance teacher at PlaPak is from NongHee, her mother works at the school, and she taught us the dance – was in charge of doing out make-up. She’s adorable and I know her from orientation because she is the one who taught us dance then, and her mother has since tried to get me to set her up with John … she wants them to talk on the internet. Anyway, it took her about a half hour of dabbing my face with this shellac-like foundation, brushing powders and eye shadows, trimming my eyebrows with a razor blade then drawing on big dark eye brows, lining my eyes with liner, gluing on fake eyelashes, and painting my lips for me to look like a Barbie. And thus a Thai dancer.
But NO! the process wasn’t complete … my arms all the way down to my fingers, neck, and visible back were then covered in a pinkish white powder (that was applied with a wet sponge) to ensure that all parts of visible skin were flawless … because lets face it, performers a flawless. So now that my entire upper body is painted and air sprayed into place I have about 4 hours to sit around a do nothing while the other dancers and getting made up … WOW that boring! Not to mention I was tired and the fake eyelashes are so heavy! My eyes wanted to water so badly and I had to use all my might to keep them from smudging the pound of make-up that was on my face … wow that’s difficult! But time eventually went by and it was time to get dressed and then time to go over to school and I took a bunch of pictures and saw some students and was told I look like a doll and was beautiful ... yes!
And then we danced and it was so fun seeing the reactions of my students, as I was able to Thai dance and look Thai. And then I was used for some sort of award ceremony, where I held a silver plate that envelopes kept getting put on, whatever, then I was finally able to eat!!! It was about 9pm at this point and I was fed delicious food and managed to not get any of it on my outfit … whaaat?! Who am I?! Then I was allowed to get changed so we went back to Villa’s house, got all changed and went back to the party where I met up with Teeda (Earm and Sumet’s 25yr old daughter who speaks awesome English – and she’s awesome) and her husband boo-e, who is also awesome, and all their cousins (my adopted family hahaha) and we sat on our designated mat and had a few beers until midnight (which at the point I really only sat there for two hours). We also danced a little, super fun. And then the countdown happened – part in English, part on Thai, some fireworks went off from somewhere in the crowd – legit I felt like I myself had set them off, they were that close – and then everyone started cleaning up … what? No seriously, midnight came, went and the party was over. But since I was with people who basically run the school/the party I didn’t get driven home until about 2 … then I talked with Michelle for a while, so I really didn’t get to bed until about 3, only to wake up again at 5 to wash all of this make-up and hair spray off of me because I was getting picked up at 6am to make merit to the monks. All I knew going into this was that I was to wear a long skirt, and it was currently freezing because the sun wasn’t up yet and I was tired. I get picked up, only about a half hour late and driven to the school, where I was greeted by a ton of people all in the canteen sorting through all of the food, that just kept coming and arranging it on plates and trays. I’m talking this was like Thanksgiving at a soup kitchen. I was part of the NongHee teachers so that meant that I basically ‘worked in the kitchen’ while the ceremony was going on and ran out only to ‘make merit’ (ie put small bits of sticky rice in each special bowl for the monks, that you are not allowed to touch) and then we were back to the kitchen to continue sorting through all of the food. And now that the ceremony has started sorting through the food means picked out all of the packaged foods from the sticky rice that people ‘made merit’ with. Super fun. Then once that was all done, we took the trays over to the ceremony and they were placed on the stage in front of the sitting monks, then we were able to go and sit. We watched this next part of the ceremony, or rather sat with our hands ‘wai-ing’ while one of the monks spoke. Then the monks began eating while yet another string tying ceremony happened … my first with NongHee … then the monks left and the food trays were distributed to the groups of people about and we ate breakfast … apparently all the donating of food to the canteen was part ritual, part you actually get to eat it when all is said and done … then of course more cleaning up. We cleaned up from the ceremony and then finished taking down all the fabric from the stage and cleaning up where the party was and then at 12:15 I was finally driven home to sleep! Yesss!!!
Then I was carted back over to the house where our makeup was getting done. Villa, the dance teacher at PlaPak is from NongHee, her mother works at the school, and she taught us the dance – was in charge of doing out make-up. She’s adorable and I know her from orientation because she is the one who taught us dance then, and her mother has since tried to get me to set her up with John … she wants them to talk on the internet. Anyway, it took her about a half hour of dabbing my face with this shellac-like foundation, brushing powders and eye shadows, trimming my eyebrows with a razor blade then drawing on big dark eye brows, lining my eyes with liner, gluing on fake eyelashes, and painting my lips for me to look like a Barbie. And thus a Thai dancer.
But NO! the process wasn’t complete … my arms all the way down to my fingers, neck, and visible back were then covered in a pinkish white powder (that was applied with a wet sponge) to ensure that all parts of visible skin were flawless … because lets face it, performers a flawless. So now that my entire upper body is painted and air sprayed into place I have about 4 hours to sit around a do nothing while the other dancers and getting made up … WOW that boring! Not to mention I was tired and the fake eyelashes are so heavy! My eyes wanted to water so badly and I had to use all my might to keep them from smudging the pound of make-up that was on my face … wow that’s difficult! But time eventually went by and it was time to get dressed and then time to go over to school and I took a bunch of pictures and saw some students and was told I look like a doll and was beautiful ... yes!
And then we danced and it was so fun seeing the reactions of my students, as I was able to Thai dance and look Thai. And then I was used for some sort of award ceremony, where I held a silver plate that envelopes kept getting put on, whatever, then I was finally able to eat!!! It was about 9pm at this point and I was fed delicious food and managed to not get any of it on my outfit … whaaat?! Who am I?! Then I was allowed to get changed so we went back to Villa’s house, got all changed and went back to the party where I met up with Teeda (Earm and Sumet’s 25yr old daughter who speaks awesome English – and she’s awesome) and her husband boo-e, who is also awesome, and all their cousins (my adopted family hahaha) and we sat on our designated mat and had a few beers until midnight (which at the point I really only sat there for two hours). We also danced a little, super fun. And then the countdown happened – part in English, part on Thai, some fireworks went off from somewhere in the crowd – legit I felt like I myself had set them off, they were that close – and then everyone started cleaning up … what? No seriously, midnight came, went and the party was over. But since I was with people who basically run the school/the party I didn’t get driven home until about 2 … then I talked with Michelle for a while, so I really didn’t get to bed until about 3, only to wake up again at 5 to wash all of this make-up and hair spray off of me because I was getting picked up at 6am to make merit to the monks. All I knew going into this was that I was to wear a long skirt, and it was currently freezing because the sun wasn’t up yet and I was tired. I get picked up, only about a half hour late and driven to the school, where I was greeted by a ton of people all in the canteen sorting through all of the food, that just kept coming and arranging it on plates and trays. I’m talking this was like Thanksgiving at a soup kitchen. I was part of the NongHee teachers so that meant that I basically ‘worked in the kitchen’ while the ceremony was going on and ran out only to ‘make merit’ (ie put small bits of sticky rice in each special bowl for the monks, that you are not allowed to touch) and then we were back to the kitchen to continue sorting through all of the food. And now that the ceremony has started sorting through the food means picked out all of the packaged foods from the sticky rice that people ‘made merit’ with. Super fun. Then once that was all done, we took the trays over to the ceremony and they were placed on the stage in front of the sitting monks, then we were able to go and sit. We watched this next part of the ceremony, or rather sat with our hands ‘wai-ing’ while one of the monks spoke. Then the monks began eating while yet another string tying ceremony happened … my first with NongHee … then the monks left and the food trays were distributed to the groups of people about and we ate breakfast … apparently all the donating of food to the canteen was part ritual, part you actually get to eat it when all is said and done … then of course more cleaning up. We cleaned up from the ceremony and then finished taking down all the fabric from the stage and cleaning up where the party was and then at 12:15 I was finally driven home to sleep! Yesss!!!
0 Response to "Ringing in the New Year - Thai Style"
Post a Comment