“Hello!”
I hear this word often. Daily. Hourly. I’m called to as I walk the ten meters to the store. As I bike the two kilometers to school. As I bike the three kilometers to the market. As I walk through the market. As I sit at my desk trying to lesson plan. As I ride up to the school. As I walk to lunch. As I return from lunch. As the students leave to go home.
“Hello!”
Thai people are exceptionally friendly and once they find out that you can speak Thai, the questions start flowing. It can be kind of overwhelming at times, but luckily, nearly everyone wants to know the same things. These are the top five questions.
For the two and a half months of Pre-Service Training, I spent four hours a day, four days a week in an immersive Thai language class. No English was allowed. It was not easy, but I ended up with some pretty solid conversational Thai skills. I’m frequently introducing myself, so I have a bit of a script rehearsed. Check it out in my latest video blog.
As I may have mentioned before, my host mom is a Thai dessert expert. I tell her that she is a Kanom Queen. (Kanom means dessert or snack in Thai.) For a while I thought that she just sold them to friends and neighbors around the village and occasionally at happenings at the watt. Not so. She makes her kanoms and they are sold at the store in Suphan Buri that has every kanom imaginable. When we went to visit, her kanoms were on display right in front of the doorway. Later, my host father showed me a video on the video camera that was a recording of a Thai children’s show that my mom was a guest on, showing the kids how to make her specialty: kanom kai bplaa. more “Selling Thai Desserts, Kanoms, at a Food Festival”
As part of Thai Day, we learned the Thai song “Dtaa Moong Dtaa.” It literally means “Eye Sees Eye,” but more loosely translated, it refers to friendship and seeing love in the other person. My friend and language classmate Jessie lead us all to sing it together. Check it out!