Festivities

     Around this time each year, Phichit holds an annual boat festival. Your mind may just be asking yourself what a boat festival is. Well, I guess a lot of thais take a liking to long boat rowing races, and that's exactly what it was. A festival designated just for the long-boat races on the Nan River in front of the Laung Temple in Phichit (the city we are teaching in).

Watching the boat races alone were pleasing to the eye, but as were all the many vendors who sold everything from puppies, to milkshakes, to octopus on a stick, to shorts, to t-shirts, to tattoos, to ray bans, to iphones,  to instruments I had never seen before, and also nazi flags (whaaaaaaaaa?????) just about anything you wanted, you could probably find it there. Over the entire weekend Friday, Saturday and Sunday I bought a total of 3 pairs of shorts, 3 shirts, 3 milkshakes, 1 neon colored orange drink, 7 pancake sort of things with a hazelnut chocolate spread in the middle which was like heaven in my mouth. 

White army of barbies 

It was hot and humid as it always is, and as crowded as could be. One thing I've learned here is how much attention you will get being white in Asia. Constantly we here the word: Phalang, which I guess a simple translation is just foreigner. Who knows... I am so oblivious to all that goes and is said around me here.  Constantly people shout "Hello!" to us in English and tell us how beautiful we are. And more often than not, we are asked to pose in a picture with multiple people. It doesn't make much sense to me, as they use a lot of white creams to make their skin lighter and also only had white barbies for sale. I'll admit, it's cool to be noticed at times, but honestly, being praised and stared at at continuously can get old. For, we were only born on opposite ends of the world.

Going off of continuously feeling oblivious to what is going on around us- I have never felt a language barrier more strongly in my life. We go out into the city quite a lot and and interact with the thai teachers here somewhat- funny thing is, as we speak in our native language, they speak in theirs and nothing is ever accomplished by it. Charades has now become a lifestyle. In fact, coming to think of it- the only legitimate conversation I have had in this town was in German. And zee photos speak the truth . What a sweet lady who showed me that my German does come in handy in Thailand. Seeing that even the packaging at the store is in thai and German and I am able to translate all words.

Along with boat racing competition, we were also introduced to a sport which requires much talent with the human foot and flipkicks. It is much like volleyball, but with your feet. Just a video to prove the swiftness, beauty and pure talent of this sport which we just discovered. America, you will be welcoming a new sport as I arrive back to your land.

The moves these young Thai men preformed were so amusing, my gal Paige and I even became fans of a team.

Funny story this though. At the end of the day on sunday we were determined to get a picture with some of the boaters. As seen in the photo below. For, we are fans of men in uniform. 

Anywho, I thought these pictures were sufficient, though my friend Paige thought differently; she didn't like the photos I took of her and the boaters. I told her that she should stay calm and we would continue looking for other boaters. Eventually we were disappointed in finding no trace of the rowing warriors.... Suddenly the idea came to mind that the Takraw players (foot volleyball) were also men in jerseys and proved to be skilled in a very fascinating sport. So we got there and Paige asked if she could get a photo with them, while chasing them to their headquarters. With much confusion to the english that was being spoken, eventually they agreed. After the agreed upon photos, they asked us kindly to watch the game they were to play in the next hour and a half. We agreed and came back to watch. They won of course and invited us to sit with them and converse. They knew a few words of english and us only a very few amount of thai prhases and words... so the night ended in laughing, language barriers and charades. 

And there you have it... A novel written by McKenna 

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