Sports and the culture around them are a bit different in Thailand, as compared to the US. The only real sport that people coalesce around and have favorite teams for is football (soccer). There are a few other sports that people like to play recreationally, like volleyball, dtagraw, and futsal. But perhaps the sport that Thailand is most famous for is muay thai.
Sports are frequently a big part of a culture. They are a way for people to bond and recreate. In Thailand, I’ve encountered a different level of enthusiasm for some sports I’m familiar with, as well as some new and different sports. But what about the world’s most popular sport? Is it also popular here in Thailand? I am of course talking about football, otherwise known to Americans as soccer.
Here in Thailand, the culture around sports is a little bit different than that in the U.S. Volleyball is really popular, and sports unknown in the U.S., like dtagraw, are too. I’ve also noticed a sport that looks vaguely familiar, but upon closer inspection I realized I knew nothing about: futsal.
Sports in Thailand are a bit different that sports in the United States. The big popular sports in Thailand are either not that popular in the United States, or they aren’t even played there. One sport that isn’t played in the U.S. is dtagraw (ตะกร้อ).
In my experience in the States, volleyball was a sport played mainly by high school girls and occasionally people at the beach. My personal experience with the sport is limited to the volleyball unit in my Team Sports class in high school, which I took to fulfill the P.E. graduation requirement, and a few volleys back and forth in some sand on a beach somewhere. I grew up playing basketball and soccer mostly, which is interesting to most Thai people as these are considered “boy” sports. Volleyball is a “girl” sport, so it is often assumed that I want to get in on the rotations of friendly pick up matches.
When I think of sports back home, I think of the big four: baseball, basketball, football and hockey. I grew up outside of Detroit, which has a sports franchise in all four of these sports, and 75% of them have had championship or near championship runs during my life time (poor, poor Detroit Lions). When I moved to Portland, I became more aware of the growing popularity of soccer with their newly minted Major League Soccer team, the Portland Timbers, but still, like most Americans, was not quite able to jump on board with the so-called beautiful game. Perhaps it was the flashbacks to playing as a child and working as a referee as a preteen. In any event, moving to Thailand has totally disoriented me in terms of sports.
Yesterday, after hearing about it since the beginning of the semester four weeks ago and watching the kids practice sometimes during class time, was finally Sports Day. This Sports Day just involved the students at our school, not other schools like the Sports Day I briefly attended when I visited back in March.
Yesterday, school “started.”
I put “started” in quotation marks because, while all of the key players were at school, nothing of consequence actually happened. The teachers were there. The students were there. Even the principal, who is rarely at school, was there.
But I did not teach.
So after 7 weeks of training we finally found out where we would be working for the next two years. Apparently the announcement is a 50 year old tradition that is a bit of a surprise so I won’t describe that here in case any future Thailand volunteers are reading in the future. more “Peace Corps: Visiting My Village and School”
As I said before, in addition to the trainings we sit through we spend our Saturdays in an organized Thai cultural activity. This past Saturday was Thai Sports Day.
This day entailed us being divided into 6 teams of different colors. Each team had to create a cheer incorporating Thai and English. After, each team played one short game of chairball, dtaw graw and a game similar to bocci ball.