Return Part 2 (9-2)

Thursday I went to school with Khun Samaporn to hang out with her for the day. She now teaches English to kindergarten to 6^th grade students in a small, rural school that has 200 students. Since the school has only 9 teachers, she also teaches some science and social studies. Two teachers will retire in September; so there will be only 7 teachers and she will have more classes. After lunch with the teachers, we went to the bank to deposit the students’ money that they save each week. Then she decided to go to Amnat Charoen to buy a shirt for me. I had made the mistake of commenting on a teacher’s ASEAN shirt and saying I liked it when Khun Samaporn asked; so she decided to buy me one. However, we found only one that I liked enough to let her buy and it was too large. Not greatly disappointed, as I liked the teacher’s shirt but didn’t really want one.

While I was at the school, I played my favorite game with some of the boys after school. They were coming down from Scouts and wanted to go out the door I was standing beside. I said “hello” to each one and wouldn’t let them out till they responded. I always enjoyed doing that, and I think students enjoy it after they get started. They certainly wait to make sure everyone says “hello.”

I returned to Khun Toy’s house just in time to leave for the wat for the afternoon chanting/prayer session that is held during the three month rainy season, also called Buddhist Lent. I used to do this once a week when I lived here, and Khun Toy didn’t do it because she was still teaching. Now that she is retired, she goes every evening and most mornings; so that’s what I did, too. Khun Toy made sure I was appropriately dressed by lending me some clothes—skirt and white blouse for morning and white clothes for evening. The evening white clothes include the white scarf that I gave her when I left. I’m pretty sure it hadn’t been used.

The evening services last 2.5 hours. Everyone chants/prays from the book for half an hour. Then there is a silent meditation for 30 minutes. This is followed by more chanting/praying for an hour and a talk from a monk for half an hour. It’s a bit long for me to sit still on the floor. After two days, I could hardly sit with my legs bent under me, as it hurt my knees after two minutes. I changed positions every half hour. The old women don’t need to do this. I enjoy an hour of chanting and silent meditation. An hour and a half is OK. But the last hour gets long, especially the monk’s talk since I don’. After the first two times, I settled into it and was able to use the whole time to meditate in some way. It was good to be there among the community. Several of the women make sure to greet me, and it was good to see them. My presence was noted. The abbot posts a lot of photos on Facebook, and I have enjoyed seeing them in the photos. Friday’s post included special mention and photos of the American visitor. Other posts also included me. Tuk called one night and mentioned having seen my photos at the wat on Facebook. When the abbot announced the attendance from each neighborhood, he included on person from America.

The services are now being held upstairs. Each person has a padded seating mat and a small table with a book stand. Before they were held downstairs and everyone took their own mat and read from books on the floor or in their hands. The upstairs room is air conditioned, which is nice. 

The central feature of the altar is a new case with a pot and some small Buddha images in it. Khun Dakom told me that they are about a thousand years old. 

They were discovered about twenty years ago when digging for a new building. The twenty Buddha images were in the pot.

Friday I got to sleep late and woke up at 7:30. It felt good to sleep until I was ready to waken. The morning was for relaxing. I sat on the porch and enjoyed the view of the pond. Then we went to Amnat Charoen to take care of some business and have lunch—duck noodle soup, which they know is one of my favorites. I’d been thinking about it. Khun Teamjan, Khun Suwit and their grandson joined us for lunch. In the evening, we returned to the wat for the evening chanting/praying.

Saturday we returned to Wat Hua Don for two days and nights. This was the leave at 5:00 AM trip to get there for the morning feeding of the monks. When we arrived, I helped arrange snacks and fruit on the trays. The nun told me in English that the people in the village like the food to be arranged beautifully for the monks. After breakfast, Khun Toy told me that we would stay Monday night, too, because they will do the evening chanting/praying. I wasn’t very happy about that, as I had thought about visiting Aemmie that day and sleeping on the tile floor for three nights seemed like a bit much. So I suggested that I visit Aemmie on Saturday, which worked for her, too, as her husband was planning to come to Ubon on Monday. We ended out not having a lot of time together, since she had plans in the afternoon and ended out having to take Maysia to the clinic to check her cough in the evening, but it was good to see her and have a little time together with her and her daughter. And I enjoyed the bed. I enjoyed meeting Maysia in person. Her personality shows on Facebook photos, but it was fun to see it in action.

Sunday morning Khun Teamjan picked me up and took me to Wat Hua Don. I was refreshed and ready for two days there. The first event was a special ceremony for Phra Kong, since he had had an operation and returned from the hospital. I remember doing this for someone when I was here before. Because he’s a monk, instead of tying string around his wrists, women often dropped it across his wrists to avoid possibly touching him. 

After the ceremony, many photos of various groups were taken.

The Malaysian family who were coming to see Phra Kong after his surgery arrived at 9:30. This was their fourth visit to the wat. They have visited a number of wats in Thailand over the years and met Phra Kong through a Malaysian monk in Thailand whom they had visited. He recently spent two months in Malaysia, and they spent time with him there. Khun Toy said they have donated a lot of money to the wat. Vanessa’s name is on the fence that Chinese Malaysians donated money for. She and Khun Toy and Khun Dakom have been Facebook and Line, a chatting app, friends for about a month. They chat in English every day at least twice but hadn’t met in person yet. So Khun Toy and Khun Dakom were excited about their arrival. With limited English, not a lot of conversation took place, but gifts were exchanged, food was shared, and photos were taken. I chatted with their daughter (age 16) quite a bit, as her English is pretty good. They left at 12:30 to fly back to Bangkok and on to Malaysia. So they made the trip to be there for only three hours. I guess it was important to them to see Phra Kong after his surgery. Before they left, Phra Kong called the son over and put his hand on his head and said a blessing. The son beamed as he walked away. This was very nice of him to do, but I couldn’t help but be reminded of the subordinate status of women, as he did not give a blessing to the daughter. Maybe there was another reason for his selecting the son, but this is what went through my mind.

I was happy to notice that the two nuns sit among the villagers now. When I was here before, the nun didn’t attend services. If she did, she sat off to the side, not as part of the group.

I enjoyed the two days at the wat now that I was mentally prepared for them. Each day I walked through the forest at least twice. We relaxed in our cabin. Each morning we helped get the donated food ready to present to the monks. I enjoyed helping with this. Monday was a Buddha day, which was the reason we stayed there the extra day. At 9:00 Khun Toy, two other women, and I went to the old temple to meditate for an hour. They also chanted/prayed for half an hour before and after the meditation. It’s a good place for meditation. At 2:00 it was cleaning time. We swept leaves from the trails. At 6:00 it was time for the evening chanting/praying and meditation. I arrived after Khun Toy did because I’d forgotten my sitting mat. When nothing was happening and few people were there, I decided to do walking meditation while waiting for the service to start. After half an hour I joined Khun Toy and realized that everyone seated was meditating, not just waiting for the service to start. While we meditated for another ha-2lf hour, more people and the monks arrived. After the hour of chanting/praying, I thought we were finished, but it was only a short break. Then Phra Kong talked for 45 minutes. When we finished at 9:00, Khun Toy announced that we would wake up at 3:00. That took me by surprise, but I later remembered that this is what we did when we slept at the wat on Buddha days. The difference was that I hadn’t realized this is what we were doing because the other people went home. So at 3:00 we woke up and went to the building with the relics from a previous monk. We started with half an hour of meditation followed by chanting/praying for an hour. We were back in our cabin at 4:30, which also surprised me because the services I had participated in before lasted until 5:00. But then I remembered that we started them with sweeping. After a brief rest in the cabin, it was time to go to the kitchen to organize the food.

Tuesday morning after breakfast Khun Toy went looking for wild mushrooms and found quite a few. Since it rained every day, there were usually new mushrooms to be found. I took my last forest walk, as we leaving that morning and I wouldn’t be returning again this trip. 

A highlight was one of the most beautiful and unusual spider webs I’ve ever seen. I was glad to have had so much time there, as it is a special place that I really enjoy.

Return to Ban Puai and Ubon Part 1 (8-27)

Tony and Duncow met me at the airport in Ubon. It was really nice to be met with smiling faces for a change—instead of just arriving on my own. It was good to see him and his family again. I stayed in his new guest house, which is also where he hangs out to use the computer and do a bit of private teaching. It was wonderful waking up to the view of their farm. Their new project is growing mushrooms, the kind that grow in bottles. It was interesting to learn about that process. The mushrooms grow quickly—from barely showing to being ready to harvest in one day. They cut the mushrooms once or twice a day and deliver them to the local market to sell wholesale. One delivery time is 2:00 AM. Not a job for me. The girls have grown up nicely. Boink speaks English well now and asked a lot of questions about China. I enjoyed chatting with her. It was good to be with the family again.

Wednesday night I had dinner with Lovely, Kate, and Angela and husbands and children. It was really good to see them and catch up with them again. I felt a little bad that this had been arranged but Tony was unable to join us.

Wednesday Khun Dakom called me to tell me that Phra Kong had had an operation and ask me to visit them at the hospital. So Thursday I spent the day at the hospital with them. Phra Kong has a private room. He was on one side with two monks attending him. Khun Toy and Khun Dakom stayed on the other side. Khun Dakom returned home every two days to take care of his animals and trees, but Khun Toy didn’t leave the hospital while he was there except to buy food across the street. On Thursday many people visited throughout the day. There are no designated visiting hours; people just came in whenever they wanted to. A head monk from another wat came. Two nuns, whom I remembered, came. When they were there, the monks went out to the balcony. Friends of Khun Toy and Khun Dakom, some of whom I recognized, came. People from the village where the wat is, some of whom recognized me, came. We had about an hour of quiet time in the afternoon when we slept. From what I could understand, it sounds like he had a tumor in his intestine. Good news is that it wasn’t cancerous.  

Friday I went to Ban Puai to stay with Khun Teamjan. We stopped at school in the morning. My teacher friends had heard from Khun Yindee that I was there and were ready to greet me with big smiles and a few hugs. And a little English, which was sweet as most of them don’t speak English other than the greetings. Everyone told me that I am beautiful. It was really heart-warming to be with them again. Teachers and primary students are wearing white on Fridays during this Buddhist Lent three months, part of the new government's policy to promote Buddhism. Primary students upstairs saw me and waved. They don’t know me, but they were excited to see a foreigner. 

Students have a morning quiet time now where they sit outside the classroom and listen to quiet music and maybe meditate. This is part of being a Buddhist school, one of the school’s many projects. One teacher told them that I would take photos of this to send to America. So I obliged.

Khun Teamjan’s grandson, now 9, greeted me in English and could chat with me a little. It was nice that he wanted to do that. Before eating dinner, he folded his hands and said the prayer they say at the Catholic school he attends because it’s a private school, not because they are Catholic. I was surprised when he did that, but it was because he wanted to show me his English, not because he does it every evening. Her granddaughter, now 5, and I had a good time playing together. Of course she didn’t remember me from before, but after a while she brought the photo of her brother, two teachers, and me at his kindergarten graduation and pointed to me “Yai Jackie.” I was touched that she knew who I am even if she didn’t remember me.

Saturday I walked over to say “hello” to my former neighbor Khun Ying. She was very happy to see me, as always. I’d planned to go on to other friends, but she took over the rest of my time. She took me to the wat and gave me a tour of all the new things there: garden beside the abbot’s house, new houses for the monks, the big, yellow gate, two new signs. Lots of changes. Then we went to the mesh tent area where the women were preparing the abbot’s lunch. Most monks take food for lunch during the morning offerings and eat it in their rooms, but the abbot eats special food in this special area. He came to eat and chatted while we waited. Since he speaks some English, he asked me several questions and took photos to put on Facebook. After he ate, the food was put on the mats for the rest of us. Fortunately, Khun Teamjan arrived then and I didn’t have to not eat the food, as most of it looked like food I can’t eat.

Khun Teamjan and I drove to Ubon to see Khun Toy and Khun Dakom at the hospital. On the way, she asked what I wanted for lunch. I said “somtom” because it a light lunch that I like and I had a dinner to go to and because it’s quick and easy, which would get us to the hospital quickly. She called her son, and we picked up his wife and son. Then we drove for half an hour to one of the seafood restaurants along the river. So for lunch we had four dishes—fish, noodles with shrimp, curried seafood in a coconut, and green curry soup. No som tom. But, of course, it was all delicious. Her son joined us at the restaurant, which was good because there was too much food for us three women.

After lunch, we went to the hospital and then Khun Teamjan drove me to the meeting point to go to Tony’s for dinner. Samporn had invited an English teacher she wanted me to meet. It turned out that he knows Khun Teamjan and Khun Toy and Khun Dakom. Khun Dakom built the road in front of the school where he teaches. Small world.

After dinner he drove me back to Ubon and to Aemmie’’s house. It was a full day for socialization, and I was tired and hadn’t wanted to go there, but I was glad I did. I recovered from my tiredness around 8:00, which often happens and had a really good visit with Aemmie and Khun Kasemsri. I’d wanted to spend time with both, just not that night. But it worked out well. We went upstairs to the air conditioned bedroom and chatted while Maysia went to sleep.

Sunday I returned to Khun Yindee’s house, as I wanted to spend time with her on the weekend when she isn’t working. In the late afternoon, we went to her farm near Ban Puai. For the first time, she is growing rice herself. (Her sister has always taken care of the farm.) The main purpose of the trip was to throw special food into the pond to hopefully attract fish in the fields to go to the pond. Then kindhearted Khun Yindee went to some places in the fields that were almost dry and picked up fish for her husband to take to the pond so they wouldn’t die.

Monday I ended out at school with Khun Yindee. It felt natural and good to be there. The school has a good feeling to it, and I feel at home there. Many students greeted me with a “Hello,” unlike the first time I arrived at the school when no one spoke to me for months. However, students—even in grades 6 and 7—can’t say more than that and “How are you?” and “I’m fine.” Sad. As sometimes happens, teachers had a meeting all morning with a man who came to talk about an upcoming contest; so students were left in class with grade 9 students monitoring them. The contest is a national contest that will select four winning self-sufficiency schools. I remember the project because they had a regional contest when I was here. So teachers will busy preparing documents and special displays for the next month. The way things are done hasn’t changed.

The school is now a bilingual school. Science, social studies, and art are taught in both Thai and English. Students also study Chinese.

I had lunch with several of the teachers. I have always felt comfortable with them even though I am on the fringe of the group since I don’t understand them when they chat and I’m not involved in their activities. Even so, I enjoy being among them.

Tuesday I returned to the hospital. Phra Kong was released to return to the wat; so we all went there for the day and night. It felt good to be there again, as I have always liked being there. Khun Toy and I did the forest walk, which I always enjoy. 













She also showed me the Budda image carved from one of two tree trunks she donated. The other is waiting to be carved. The tree trunks were soaked underwater for a long time. I remember learning this about teak floors in an old house in Vietnam. Sleeping at the wat means sleeping on a thin, bamboo mat on the tile floor. Hard.

New at Wat Hua Don is the foundation for a chedi/pagoda that is being built. Khun Dakom said it will cost about 8,000,000 bahts/$265,000. The top is finished and on display. It contains Buddha relics. The project will take one to three years to complete.

At breakfast on Wednesday several of the village women greeted me, which was nice. I remember them, too. We enjoyed watching the squirrels eat the left over rice that is put out for them. 










Khun Suwit and Khun Teamjan came to the wat later in the morning and we went on a short tour of three nearby wats. Wat Pat Tammiset has special Buddha images, one of which has relics from the Buddha, as do many of the wats. 

Another wat has a boat that Khun Dakom said is about a thousand years old. It was found at the bottom of the nearby river twenty years ago. It is 24 meters long and 2.7 meters wide. 

The third wat has a boat that is 150-200 years old and was found in the river two years ago. It is 26.5 meters long and 3.5 meters wide.   

Then we returned to Khun Dakom and Khun Toy’s home for a couple days. We slept in the small house by the pond; Khun Toy and I in the larger room, and Khun Dakom in the smaller one. We laughed about the time the rat took my watch during the night.  Khun Toy brought out the sheets I had given her when I left. I don’t think they’ve been used since, but I enjoyed, especially enjoyed the top sheet since Thais use a blanket instead.

A new addition at their house is a washing machine. It’s nice that Khun Toy now has one. The other new addition is android phones. Khun Toy had bought one when I was here two years ago and they’d been sharing it. Now they each have their own phones, given to them by Phra Kong. They are fanatic about using Line, the chat app most Thais use, and Facebook and have them out every time they sit down. I think they spend about four hours a day checking their communications. With their new phones, they have also become photographers. Thus I lost one of my “jobs,” as one of the few things I could do for them was take photos and give them to them. Now they take their own and have joined the people who take photos all the time. I taught both of them how to post photos on Facebook; so that will be a fun way to keep in touch. They have enjoyed photos I post; now I can enjoy their photos.

Cha'am and Bangkok (8-19)

Since I had to remain in Bangkok for several more days, I decided to go to the nearby beach at Cha’am for the weekend. Friday I took a shared van. I found it fairly easily. After taking the BTS to Victory Monument, I asked at the first vans I saw and the woman pointed to where I should go. The second person I asked took me to the place to purchase a ticket and wait for a van. When I was dropped off in Cha’am, there was a taxi—unmetered—waiting. Although he reduced his fee a little, I knew he was charging too much (120 bahts/$4 for six minutes) for the short trip, but there were no other choices. Sometimes you have to pay even when you know it’s too much. So four hours after leaving my room in Bangkok I was in my room in Cha’am.

I remember coming to this beach for a Peace Corps conference. It’s not one of Thailand’s famous beautiful beaches, but it’s a good one. Long and clean. I chose a hotel across the street from the beach for easy access. After settling into my room, I went for a late afternoon 1.5 hour walk on the beach. It was overcast and windy; so it wasn’t hot and there were lots of waves. I was surprised that there were very few people on the beach. 

After walking, I sat in a beach chair and bought fried shrimp, squid, and crab from a vendor for dinner.

Saturday morning I walked the other direction for my 1.5 hour walk. No one was on the beach near the hotel, but down the beach a bit there were more people. It was the same when I returned at about noon. I bought somtom/papaya salad and grilled chicken, a typical Thai lunch, and took it to a chair facing the water. The man told me that chairs in that front group facing the water are for families or groups and single people have to sit in the back group of chairs that face across the beach. Since no one was in any of the front group chairs, I pushed a bit and he agreed that I could sit there. I told him I’d move when the chairs were needed for a group. That didn’t happen until 4:00. Then he took one of the chairs and put it farther up on the beach under an umbrella for me, which was quite nice of him.

So, I spent the whole afternoon relaxing and reading on the beach. The weather was cloudy and not hot; so it was comfortable to be outside all afternoon. I had bought a shirt to wear in the water. So I went into the water Thai style in my light-weight pants and the shirt.

Between 3:00 and 4:00 more people came to the beach. Since it wasn’t a hot, sunny day, I found it interesting that they arrived so late.

Sunday I rented a bicycle because I wanted to ride. I rode down the beach road until the end where I found a practically empty beach. Only a fisherman and a few people digging for clams were there. Two foreign men also walked past me. 

The sky was blue with brilliant white clouds. So it was lovely to walk on this quiet beach.

Next I rode on another street and came to a small wat. It was also beautiful against the blue sky. 

Returning to the beach road I came across a special shrine, maybe the city shrine. 

On the beach road, I rode to the other end of the beach where I found the draw bridge for pulling blue crabs. It’s a narrow—barely wide enough for one motorcycle—draw bridge across the jetty. The fishing boats are all blue. Vendors sell fresh and dried seafood. 

I had a late lunch at a restaurant along the shore—horse crab, which may have meant horseshoe crab. Delicious.

After returning the bicycle, I had a Thai massage. I realized how much I miss those. Chinese body massages don’t include the feet or head. As always, there were painful spots but I left feeling much better.

There were more people on the beach Sunday morning and there were more in the evening than there had been Friday evening, which I found interesting. Maybe local people.

Monday morning I took my final walk on the beach. Then I ordered lunch at the hotel and continued to enjoy the beach atmosphere while I relaxed and ate. I was in no rush to return to the city. The woman at the hotel called a motorcycle taxi to take me to the van to Bangkok: 40 bahts/$1.30, much less than the taxi I took to the hotel. This was my first post-Peace Corps motorcycle ride.

When I arrived at the hotel, I thought about how it was like returning home, since it was the same one I’d stayed the week before. One of the young women I’d been friendly with was working and heartily welcomed me back. I was upgraded to a larger room with a window. I was surprised how much I enjoyed the window and the view. What a treat!

Tuesday morning I headed back to the China embassy. I paid for the visa and collected my passport with the visa for 30 days. Twenty minutes after arriving I left.

A comment on security at the China embassy: At the American embassy, they x-ray bags and you have to check anything electronic. At the China embassy, you walk in. The second time I entered, I had purchased a drink in a cup. The woman told me “No water.” Since I had a bottle of water in my bag, I thought this meant no visible water. I drank the tea and left the cup on the ledge with other cups and bottles of water. The third time I went, the man checked my bag. When he saw the water bottle, he told me not to drink the water, which I thought was interesting. No one in the room had said anything when I drank water on my first two visits.

Since I then had several hours until my flight to Ubon, I decided to go to Lumphini Park to hang out and enjoy being outdoors. 

The park has a China-Thailand pavilion that was sent from China and reassembled.

In Bangkok I enjoyed the Indian and Arabian food in the neighborhood of the hotel. I always enjoyed staying in that area to have the opportunity to eat food that is not Thai just for a change. Now it was a pleasure to have food that is not readily available in China and is not available in Wenjiang. I figured I would enjoy that in Bangkok since I’d soon be eating delicious Thai food with my friends.

Language: After the first week, I used more Thai than Chinese. As I heard words, I remembered them. The sad thing is that I will have to reverse this process when I return to China—replacing the Thai that will be on top with the Chinese that is being suppressed.

Bangkok and Pattaya (8-15)

Sunday evening I arrived in Bangkok. It was good to arrive and know my way around for a change. I stayed at a hotel I had used in the past. When I arrived, it was really nice to be able to speak English for the whole registration process. And I enjoyed walking around the neighborhood, becoming familiar with things Thai again.

I had a Facebook message from Khun Yindee telling me that Khun Toy and Khun Dakom were in Bangkok. So I sent a message and learned from Khun Dakom that they were in Bangkok for the funeral and cremation of Khun Toy’s older brother on Monday. After I bought a SIM card Monday morning, I called and arranged to meet them Tthe wat was off Sukhumvit, as was my hotel; so it was easy to get there. When I walked down the street to the wat and asked for directions to make sure I hadn’t missed it on a side street, the man asked if I was in a hurry. I said I was a little because my friends were waiting for me. Then he had his wife drive me there, which took several minutes. It was so nice of them to assist me.

When I arrived, Khun Dakom and Khun Toy greeted me with big hugs. It was wonderful to be with them again. After the ceremony, the extended family decided to go to Pattaya for the night, and I was told that they all agreed that I should join them. So off I went on a surprise trip to Pattaya. (This is called Thai-napping, a version of kidnapping.) There were sixteen people staying at the house that night. Blankets were put on floors for us to sleep on. We all went to a seafood restaurant on the shore for dinner. 

It was delicious. 

After the meal began, they honored Khun Toy for the Thai Mother’s Day/the queen’s birthday, pinning flowers on her blouse. When it was time for dessert, they brought in a large cake from Swenson’s. It was so nice to be among these people—my friends and their relatives—again. I could feel the love among them. And they do smile and laugh a lot. I hadn’t realized how much I miss that in China.

Tuesday morning we went to the beach for breakfast. 

We sat on beach chairs under umbrellas and ate more seafood and other foods. Then we relaxed on the beach for an hour before heading our different ways. They took me to the bus station to return to Bangkok, and everyone else returned to Isaan. It was a lovely way to spend two days. Much nicer than hanging out at the hotel in the city.

Wednesday I went to the China embassy to apply for a new visa so I can return as a tourist. I’d read that applying in Bangkok is challenging. It was. I waited 3.5 hours to go to the window to submit my application. The woman looked at what I had and gave me a list of what I needed. I knew I had to have a hotel reservation, and I knew Amanda had made one for a few days; so that’s what I did. However, here they would not accept that and I had to have reservations for the whole 30 days. It’s a matter of making reservations that can be cancelled and then cancelling them after receiving a visa. It’s a nuisance. Surely they know that this is what people do. I knew I had to have a plane reservation; so I made one to Chengdu. But I didn’t have a return flight, which was required. I also needed to provide a bank statement showing I have enough money. When I left, I decided to go to a local travel agency and request a ticket that I could cancel. The man immediately asked if I needed it for the China embassy and said he would charge 500 bahts/$17. I quickly realized that he was talking about a fake ticket. Since cancelling a reservation would cost 2000 bahts, that sounded good.

So on Thursday I returned to the embassy with my set of documents. My wait to get to the window was only 2.5 hours. The woman looked at the list of needed documents and then went through my documents and application. Then she told me I can stay for 30 days and I could pick up my passport on Tuesday. I left feeling good but later realized that perhaps this was only approval of the application and didn’t mean I would definitely get a visa and remained a little apprehensive about my fake flight reservation and my denial of a previous China visa. I have one in my Peace Corps passport that would be cancelled in early September, but I don’t have one in my personal passport. Since this is difficult to explain without personal contact, I decided not to mention it.

Going through this process reminded me of a few people I have met who had similar challenges applying for a visa to the U.S. I remember a woman in Romania who had been invited by a minister. On her first trip to the embassy she was sent home with a long list of documents they required. When she returned a couple weeks later, the man didn’t even look at her documents and gave her a visa. The China visa fee for Americans is four times that of citizens of other countries. I read that this is because the U.S. visa fee for Chinese is $140; so they charge Americans the same fee to enter China. That seems like a reasonable response to the high U.S. visa fee.

I spent the rest of the afternoon shopping. On the way to the mall I passed a special exhibit about the traditional Thai khon performances which tell the Ramakien story and in which everyone wears masks. This is one of the queen’s special projects related to Thai traditional culture. Each year they perform a different part of the story. 

The exhibit had masks for all the characters and some costumes used for the performances.

For shopping I went to the Thai crafts floor at one of the shopping centers that I have enjoyed in the past. I wanted to get some small gifts for my Chinese friends. In the process I also bought a Thai silk blouse for myself. Thai silk is just too beautiful to resist. On the street I bought some pants that actually reach my shoes, which none of my other pants do.

Readjusting to Thailand was interesting. I spent most of Monday trying to remember a little Thai language. It was a struggle. I would think of something I wanted to say and then I’d remember the Chinese. Sometimes the Turkish from twenty years ago came back. And then the Thai. The foreign language section of my brain was certainly muddled. It took all day to remember the numbers to ten. Hanging out with the family and listening to them chat helped me remember some of the basic Thai I used to know. I’d hear words and remember them. The rest of the week I wavered between Chinese and Thai when asking prices and thanking people.

Another adjustment was the money. The exchange rate in Thailand is 30 bahts to a dollar while in China it is 6 RMB to a dollar. So prices seemed really high because the numbers here are higher. Something that is 150 bahts is only 30 RMB or $5. But sometimes I would react to the big numbers first; then I had to think and remember where I am and what currency I am using.

Things I have enjoyed in Thailand:

The abundance of delicious, fresh fruit everywhere

The high level of English at the hotel reception desk. It’s so nice to be able to speak in English and be understood and responded to. (Yes, it would be nice if my Chinese and Thai language skills were better, but they aren’t. I do the best I can, but it is minimal.)

The friendly people. Somehow they do seem friendlier than most Chinese people.

Cars that stop for pedestrians. When cars are turning right on red, they stop for pedestrians crossing the street. When streets are crowded and traffic is moving slowly, they stop and wait for people to cross in front of them.

Lack of constant honking

High speed Internet that is really fast

Things I have missed:

Trash cans. I would walk around carrying an empty cup looking for a trash can to put it in. Then I would remember that I was in Thailand where they are scarce. In China, there are frequent trash cans in public places.