I AM FULL

Alyssa is from Lawrence, Massachusetts and graduated Valedictorian from Saint Michael’s College with a BA in Anthropology/Sociology and Environmental Studies. Prior to Fulbright, she served as an AmeriCorps Fellow at a Boston middle school. She most recently served as a Fulbright ETA at Jorakhe Wittayayon School in Khon Kaen province. She enjoyed bringing laughter and movement to learning through vocabulary games and her students’ favorite, Bingo. Throughout her time in Thailand, Alyssa has been able to connect with her surrounding community, helping the local veterinarian and playing badminton with teachers. She enjoyed participating in two of Thailand’s half-marathons and forming life-long friendships.



Anne Frank once said, “Think of all the beauty still around you and be happy.” For some time, I have struggled with eating disorders and have forgotten to see the beauty in myself and the world around me. However, Thailand showed me what I was missing. When I was accepted to Fulbright, I was nervous about living in a country with an entirely different cuisine and culture surrounding food. When I arrived at my school in Khon Kaen, the teachers greeted and welcomed me with lunch. I accepted a small portion of rice and a boiled egg. When told to eat more numerous times, I grew nervous and repeated what I found to be the most important Thai phrase, “Im Leu” which means “I am Full.” I worried that I would ruin my relationship with my new friends because everything I had learned so far indicated that I had to partake in this food culture to fit in. However, something amazing happened. 

First experience teaching in Bangkok

I stopped and looked around hoping to find something beautiful and I did. I saw badminton rackets, bicycles, and volleyballs. At this moment, I began wondering what the exercise culture of Thailand entailed. What were all of the sports and activities that my new community partook in? My first taste of this culture was badminton. Every day after school, two teachers and I would play for one hour. We set up a scoring system, allowing us to keep track of points and of who had the most wins. Although I consider myself an athlete, I never won. Not once. Therefore, I often took my turn waiting on the bench. While resting, I laughed and learned more Thai words as the teachers shouted challenging remarks back and forth as well as the word for windy when someone made an error. As the badminton birdie flew back and forth between my two, smiling teachers, I myself smiled and felt that I had found my place here. I didn’t have to change who I was; instead, I was able to blend my love of exercise with theirs and allow my true self to shine through. 

Finish line of the 13th Annual Khon Kaen Marathon!

My next endeavor into the exercise culture was running the Khon Kaen International Marathon. Prior to coming to Thailand, I knew that I wanted to partake in the half marathon part of the event. When I arrived, I was excited to learn other English Teaching Assistants also hoped to join. As the weeks passed in January, I would run every day, training bit by bit for the big day! The psychical education teacher at my school had run the marathon in the past and was thrilled when I shared my training plan with him. My host teacher’s husband also planned to run the full marathon and was set to be one of the oldest participants. I enjoyed being able to talk with him about running. I never imagined that running would be as much a part of Thai culture as it is in my life. When the day finally arrived, I remember standing at the starting line and thinking how everything in my life had changed. I moved to Thailand, I trained for my first half marathon, I found my place in a new community, and I was happy. 

Making friends at Elephant Nature Park!

A happiness that continued throughout the whole race despite some foot pain! Spectators cheered as all of us runners passed by. Everyone around me was smiling, cheering, and enjoying being a part of something that transcends differences. Regardless of race, religion, or culture, people can join together for running. And so, I kept running my way through Thailand. Every visit I made to Bangkok, I ran around Lumphini Park. A taxi driver taught me how to express my love of the park in saying, “Chan chop Suan Lum” (I like Lumphini Park). I ran around the largest lake in Khon Kaen every single weekend. I joined the Valentine’s Day race in Chiang Mai which was the first of its kind. I ran around my school every morning with almost seven dogs which elected themselves as my bodyguards, making sure no other stray dogs bothered me. Every step I took brought me a feeling of closeness to a part of Thai culture that I did not know existed. 

My neighbor, Poolita, visiting me at school!

To my excitement, the exercise culture included even more than running. I played volleyball with my students after school for a few days. I also learned of a game titled, takraw, which can be described as kick volleyball. The students would leap and spin in the air as they kicked a bamboo ball back and forth over a net. In the private of my own driveway, I would practice trying to kick the ball while remaining in one place in order to feel comfortable enough to step onto the court and try this new game. However, as the bamboo ball alluded my feet and rolled down my driveway into the trees numerous times, I realized that this was not an easy game. Soon after, I went to a festival where sponsored teams were participating in a takraw competition. I remember admiring the players as they leapt in the air like ninjas. My host father also took an interest in this sport, which allowed us to bond over yet another aspect of the exercise culture. 


Soon after the festival, an event titled Bike for Dad arrived. Two teachers at my school tossed a shirt at me and invited me to join. I was told to be ready in ten minutes. “Okay!” I shouted as I tossed my bike into the back of their pickup truck and headed to the starting line. I felt so relieved in this moment that I was making friends through sports rather than dining. Several people in the nearby village also joined the event. Some rode bicycles while others stood along the side of the roads. Many people greeted me in the traditional Thai way which is to wai. I attempted to return the act with two hands, but soon remembered that I am not that savvy on a bike. As I continued to pedal past onlookers and rice fields and the sun slowly set, I was again very happy. While running allowed me to see the beautiful cities, the bike ride allowed me to explore the pure, undeveloped parts of Thailand.

Bike for Dad

Throughout all of these experiences and more, my fellow teachers and host mother came to understand and appreciate me in the ways that I was different from them. Teachers gifted me with a badminton racket and a volleyball, and if food was the gift it was either corn or bananas. To close, when I think about the phrase “Im leu” now, I think of how true it is. Maybe I am not full because of all the papaya salad and sticky rice, but I AM FULL of love and happiness from my time in Thailand and from the people who have forever impacted my life. Thailand and the community I became a part of, have taught me to believe in myself, see the beauty around me, and that it is okay to say no as long as you say yes to something else.

Blending in: the Adventures of an Invisible Asian American

Amy Bohn was born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area of California. She graduated from the University of California, Berkeley in 2013 with a double major in Political Economy and Asian Studies and a minor in Japanese. Prior to Fulbright, Amy was an AmeriCorps after-school instructor at an elementary school in Oakland, CA. Amy is a 2015-2016 AMCHAM-Fulbright English Teaching Assistant in Ubon Ratchathani, a city in the northeast of Thailand. In her free time, Amy enjoys exploring the cafes in her city and trying all the delicious Thai snacks. After Fulbright, Amy will move to Japan to teach English and explore the Japanese side of her identity. She hopes to work as a Foreign Service Officer one day.




The Guessing Game

“Amy, you are a Thai girl!” Mae Usa, one of my many Thai "mothers" and host teachers, calls to me from across the office. With an amused smile I accept the compliment, one I’ve heard at least once a week since arriving at Triam Udomsuksa Pattanagarn School back in November. I look like a Thai person, but looks can be deceiving. In fact, I am not Thai in the slightest.


My ethnicity and nationality are a guessing game. Generally, people can tell I am a mixed-race person of Asian heritage, but where do I come from? Once Thailand is ruled out, common guesses include the Philippines, China, Malaysia, Vietnam, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Laos, and Singapore. Nice try, but none of those are correct.

My family and I during a childhood visit to Japan

I am a mixed-race Japanese American, born and raised in California. My mother immigrated to the United States from Japan. My father is an American of European descent. Because I am closer to my mother’s side of the family, I identify more with the Japanese side of my heritage. However, in my heart,  I am an American, through and through.



Identity in Crisis
Having grown up in a majority Asian community in California, I never felt that my Japanese and American identities conflicted. Asian-American was the norm in the particular corner of America that I called home. Additionally, for whatever reason, many strangers claimed they could tell I was ethnically Japanese by looking at me. I had always felt confident that my physical appearance matched my identity as both Japanese and American.


It was not until I studied abroad in Thailand in 2012 that I first encountered people who questioned my identity. To my frustration, no one could tell I was American. Strangers kept insisting that I looked Thai or some other Asian ethnicity that was not Japanese. Instead of other people affirming my identity, for the first time I had to defend it on my own. My identity was in crisis.

While studying abroad in Bangkok, I participated in the Wai Khru ceremony at Mahidol University 

with my friend Nit. Wai Khru is a ritual where students pay respect to teachers.

Those scenarios forced to reevaluate how I understood my own identity. I learned firsthand that many people did not think Asians could be Americans. I realized that “passing” for a certain ethnicity was not a matter of fact, because “passing” was contextual and depended on the perceptions and opinions of other people. Most importantly, I discovered that my sense of identity had to come from within. As long as I knew in my heart what I identified as and where I came from, what other people think about my identity should not bother me.



A Case of Mistaken Identity

Armed with the lessons I learned from studying abroad in Bangkok, I felt ready to return to Thailand as a Fulbright ETA and further explore the complexing conundrum of being Asian American in Thailand. Whenever I am mistaken for a Thai person, I feel like an “invisible American”. Here are the main implications of being an “invisible American” whether I am out in town or meeting new people for the first time.


- People respect my privacy and personal space.

I can wander around my city, Ubon Ratchathani, alone without being harassed or hassled on the basis of my race. No one stares at me. Strangers do not stop me not to pose for awkward photos, nor do they randomly snap pictures as I walk by. Unsavory men do not call out “Hallo!”. Hawkers do not hassle me about goods I don’t want to buy. This is all because I look like any other ordinary Thai person on the street.

My co-workers and I at a Buddhist ceremony at my school Triam Udomsuksa Pattanagarn
Ubon Ratchathani.

 - Strangers are surprised that I can’t speak Thai.

Too often, I approach strangers for help in my city. To my dismay, Thai people generally seem confused, annoyed, and sometimes outright agitated that I don’t speak Thai. To them, my face appears Thai, yet my language ability doesn’t match their expectations. I quickly learned that if I want my requests to be received warmly, I must speak Thai properly. Not garbled keywords, but actual sentences with a clear attempt at grammar. Eventually, I realized I could also easily tell people in Thai that I’m a foreigner who does not speak Thai well before making any requests. Now, instead of looking annoyed, people seem curious by my Thai appearance and are happy to help a foreigner in need. Not to mention, I get to practice speaking Thai.


 - My nationality confuses people.

Many people are reluctant to believe that I am an American. Thai people definitely understand when I say it in Thai, but they look confused and ask me why I look Asian or they refuse to believe me. Foreigners, including other Americans, are also skeptical. Too many times, foreigners have insisted that I can’t be an American, that I must be Thai because they overheard me speaking a few broken phrases. People don’t want to believe me because I don’t look like what most people think an American should look like.


People always want an explanation. I tell them that my mom is from Japan and my dad is an Americans of European descent. Some people obviously only accept that I’m American once I tell them my dad is white. I want people to understand: it doesn’t matter where my parents come from or what race they are. America is a country built by generations of immigrants from all over the world. I’m American because I simply am.


- Sometimes people treat me with less respect.

Most of the time, cases of mistaken identity are harmless and can be easily smoothed over with a smile or a simple explanation. However, sometimes people blatantly treat my friends and me differently based on how they perceive our races.


For instance, one of my ETA friend’s school director exhibited a clear bias for white Americans when meeting Fulbright ETAs at an English camp. Although 5 Fulbright ETAs, including me, gathered to teach at the camp, the school director stated in his opening speech that only 3 American ETAs were teaching at the camp. My friend’s host teacher stepped in and had each of us explain our ethnicity to everyone to make it clear that all 5 of us were Americans. After the opening ceremony, we finally met the director. Although we all introduced ourselves as Americans, the school director spoke only Thai to the ETAs who looked Asian while switching to English for the ETAs who looked white. On top of that, the school director lavished the “white” ETAs with questions and compliments while outright ignoring us “Asian” ETAs. I felt frustrated that the school director treated my friends and me so differently even though we were doing the same work.


Although bitter feelings linger from such interactions, I try not to fixate on them. Nothing I do will change such people’s behavior. Thankfully interactions with such people are rare. Instead of focusing on a few negative interactions, I think instead of all the people who have treated me with kindness and respect: my host teachers, my coworkers, my students, my neighborhood shopkeepers, the Fulbright staff, my fellow ETAs, and the many Thai strangers who helped me when I was lost or travelling alone. Compared to the handful of prejudiced people, so many more people have been friendly, welcoming, and accepting of me. These are the people who make my Thailand experience a positive one.



What is an American? What is a Thai person?

My experiences in Thailand not only allow me to better understand my own identity, but also challenge my perceptions of what it means to pass for American or Thai. While interning with the Ministry of Education in March, I attended an English speech contest organized by the British Council and the Ministry of Education. The best students from the top high schools and universities of Thailand were nominated by their schools to compete. Whether they were presenting to the judges or casually chit-chatting between rounds, a majority of the students spoke impeccable English the entire time, many with British or American-tinged accents. They wore the same style of school uniforms as my students in Ubon Ratchathani, yet they were so confident about speaking English. They contrasted starkly with my students, who freeze when trying to speak English with me and switch to Thai instead.

My fellow AMCHAM-Fulbright ETAs and I hanging out at Sukhothai Historical Park (clockwise from the left: me, Elaine, Ia, Edie, Crystal, and Dee).

If I had not already known they were Thai high school and university students, those students could have been from anywhere in the world. The way they behaved and talked, from their level of vocabulary down to their intonation, reminded me of my classmates from high school and university. In the cities of California where I grew up, the majority of my classmates were of Asian descent with immigrant parents, and still we were all Americans. These Thai young adults could have passed for Americans too.


Then it hit me: the idea that people should look, act, or talk a certain way to be from anywhere was ridiculous. At the same time, I also realized that it was not that outrageous that no one in Thailand could tell I was not Thai.



Final Thoughts

As a mixed-race person, I think often about identity and what it means to “pass” for a particular ethnicity or race. Race clearly plays a role in how Thai people and foreigners in Thailand think about “American-ness” and “Thai-ness”. It’s hard not to take it personally when people outright reject your identity. Though I tire of constantly explaining why I am Asian and American, I’ve become better at remaining neutral and not holding it against people. After all, it’s not completely unheard of for a Thai person in Thailand to seem as Westernized as an Asian person who grew up in America. At the very least, I know that by being in Thailand and being known to my community, I am in a unique position to open people’s minds to the different ways race, ethnicity, and nationality intersect.

Thai Kids On Songkran

Amy Cosgrove is a Kansas City native and recently graduated from the University of Arkansas with a BA in Communication and a minor in marketing. She is currently serving as a Fulbright ETA at Ban Bowin School in Chonburi province. Along with teaching 800 students ages 8-15 she enjoys leading dance club and playing American football with her students. Throughout her time in Thailand Amy has loved exploring her home province as well as other cities and neighboring provinces. She's enjoyed eating the food, experiencing exciting cultural festivals and has loved connecting with people both in Bowin and throughout Thailand.

They wait for this day all year. It’s the excitement of Santa Clause, Christmas Eve and Thanksgiving dinner all in one. People travel hundreds of miles to celebrate with their loved ones.

Kids grow up riding through town hanging onto the back of a truck or on the rear of their dad's scooter, soaking everyone in sight with their Hello Kitty water gun in hand. They play with reckless abandon. They're free, the way that kids should always be. And the best part, they do it side by side with their parents- who in turn get to be kids for the day as well!

It's the kind of fun where you play all day and crash into your pillow from pure exhaustion the moment you finish dinner. You quickly fall asleep, replaying the day’s excitement in your head like it’s ESPN’s Top Ten.

There are no teams and no rules. Everyone is your teammate and everyone is your target.

This long awaited holiday is Songkran, or Thai New Years.

My cousin, sister and I ready for a day of Songkran in Chiang Mai. 

This year I was lucky enough to participate in my first Songkran holiday. With my sister and cousin in tow, we made our way to Chiang Mai to join other Fulbrighters in the celebration. The city of Chiang Mai was electric with energy and excitement. Everyone was joyous, excited and very, very wet.

The first day we made our way around the city and celebrated at Taphae gate filled with people from all over the world. We stood in front of our hostel spraying every truck, car and scooter that passed by, occasionally getting drenched in ice cold water and dancing around to warm back up.

The second day we headed through the small side streets in the old city to eat lunch at my favorite shop. On our way we were stopped in our tracks by a group of little nuggets armed with super soakers. Once we turned the corner to see them we stopped, took our water guns out and then one little girl yelled “Bai!” meaning “go” in Thai, and they started charging. So we fought back and were swimming through the alleyway to the other side of the street.

After lunch we walked back the same way and were greeted again by the happiest of Songkran teams. We stayed of course, battling in laughter and dousing each other in water. We were immediately welcomed by their older siblings, parents, and aunts and uncles making our opposing teams one. They were having an incredibly joyous party with dancing, singing, eating and spraying people who passed by. The women were feeding us food and drinks while simultaneously pouring water down our backs in a kind way to wish us good luck. Everyone was excited to have us join them and it felt right- normal, and like we were part of the family.

We were seamlessly integrated into their Songkran team. As we’d see people approaching our territory we would rally the troops, grab the hose to refill our water tanks and go out in a full on sprint shrieking and screaming with happiness. 

This was our second interaction with our new friends.

Time flew by as we danced and played. One boy in particular was around 6 years old and had the best dance moves out of us all! To put it simply, he just had the most flat out swag I’ve ever seen.

Numerous groups of other foreigners passed by and asked me how I knew this family. I responded with a shrug and said I just happened to meet them that day and was having the most incredible day hanging out with them.

We continued to play all day long. Once our bucket ran out of water and the hose stopped working, we ran a few doors down to a guesthouse to refill. There were two backpackers from the UK there and they joined us for a while laughing as the kids made sure to soak them from head to toe. 

The Fulbright gang along with my family 

They also asked me how I knew the family and what I was doing in Thailand. I explained to them how I was a teacher and how these kids reminded me a lot of my own students. I told them how their family welcomed me so graciously into their home and how, well, I was having the time of my life!

One of them looked at me and said, “I’ve never met anyone so happy.”

I stopped a second and realized how incredibly happy I was. But “happy” doesn’t quite sum it up entirely. It was the kind of happy where you’re completely relaxed yet equally excited and high on life.

Later that night as we made our way back to our hostel and I couldn’t stop smiling. These few hours were among the top moments of my experience in the past eight months. I felt like I was right back in my hometown on 71st Terrace in Kansas playing kick the can until our mom whistled us home.

This is my cousin getting drenched by our new friends.

I'm so thankful Fulbright has given me this opportunity to immerse myself in Thai culture in a very authentic way. Before, I might have just walked right by that family and kept to the touristy hot spots for Songkran. However, but because of my time in Bowin, the confidence I’ve gained with basic Thai, and a huge appreciation for the kindness of Thai people, I was able to have a true cultural experience.

It has been far from a cake walk, but everyday is an experience paired with something to learn. I am learning how to figure out who I, Amy Cosgrove, am away from everything that's ever defined me- my family, friends, culture, language, and religion. But because I don’t have those safety nets, I am learning how to live the Thai way.

Looking back at all of the cultural blunders and miscommunications I've stumbled over in Thailand, I realize that I have been able to have an authentic Thai experience- meeting and investing in friendships- because of them. I’ll forever cherish those few hours spent roaming in pure bliss. But most importantly, I’ll always remember how I felt in that moment- free, accepted, and simply, purely and genuinely happy.

Started From the Bottom, Now We’re Here

Michele McDonald was born and raised in Cincinnati, Ohio. She recently graduated from the University of Dayton with a B.S. in Adolescent to Young Adult Social Studies Education and minors in German and History. Michele is a 2015-16 Fulbright-AMCHAM English Teaching Assistant (ETA) at Rachprachanukroh 8 School in the province of Nakhon Si Thammarat.

In her free time, Michele loves to explore Thailand 

and eat as much delicious Thai food as she can. 

She also enjoys exercise and practises several martial arts, including Muay Thai and Kung Fu. In the future, Michele hopes to work as a journalist in order to continue to travel and learn more about the world. She also plans to continue her journey as a lifelong martial artist.

To say I love martial arts is an understatement; it is an addiction. I have been practicing martial arts for almost six years now, earning a first degree black belt in Shaolin Do Kung Fu, and also more recently beginning my journey in the world of Brazilian Jiu-jitsu and Muay Thai. Naturally, Muay Thai was one of my primary reasons for applying to teach English in Thailand. I wanted the opportunity to live and train in a culture where a martial art is the national sport. While teaching, I have had little to no time to train and immerse myself in Muay Thai as I would like. Luckily, our Fulbright in Thailand grants us a unique opportunity to pursue an internship of our own personal or professional choosing for five weeks during our school’s summer vacation. I obviously wanted to do something with Muay Thai and, after a referral from a previous Fulbright researcher, I ended up in the province of Buriram, which is located in Isaan (the name of northeast Thailand) working at Wor. Watthana, a nonprofit Muay Thai gym.


Muay Thai, or more affectionately known as “The Art of Eight Limbs,” is similar to Western Kickboxing; however, it allows the use of knees and elbows (hence the eight limbs), and also utilizes a clinch, which is more or less standing grappling. Just like baseball, basketball, or football is to America, Muay Thai is to Thailand; turn on the TV on a weekend afternoon or evening and you can find Muay Thai fights easily. While Bangkok is considered the Mecca of Muay Thai, with the giant Lumpinee Stadium and dozens of famous gyms and fighters, a majority of these fighters come from Isaan, the poorest and most undeveloped area of Thailand. This trend is very similar to American boxing; much like the young Mike Tyson’s and Bernard Hopkins’ growing up in the projects, these future Muay Thai fighters have little to nothing. The grittiness and durability that can only develop from living in extreme poverty easily translates into the world of Muay Thai. For many of these children, Muay Thai is a way to escape the cycle of poverty and also a means to provide for their families.

Pictures of the gym

Wor. Watthana was started in January of 2015 by Boom and Frances Watthanaya. Boom was born in Thailand and the gym itself is actually located in front of the house he grew up in. Frances is Canadian, but came to Thailand to train in Muay Thai, which consequently was how the couple met. Although they had been living in Canada with their young daughter for several years, they moved back to Thailand a few years ago in order to take care of Boom’s father. They had no intentions of starting a gym, and when I asked Frances about it, she describes it almost as an “accident.” When her and her husband started training at her father-in-law’s house, kids just started showing up and working out with them. Thus, Wor. Watthana was born. It started out with them and the kids training in the dirt, but through monthly sponsors and donations, they now have a boxing ring, heavy bags, kickboxing gear, and a roof over their heads. I have some pictures of the facility below. From a Western perspective, the gym looks very meager, but this Muay Thai gym actually has substantially more equipment than an average gym in Isaan.


My initial goal for my internship (other than train Muay Thai) was to teach English to fighters at the gym, as well as other members of the community who were interested. Learning English is crucial for Muay Thai fighters because it opens up international opportunities as a trainer in countries all over the world. These fighters do not need to be these amazing, undefeated champions to work abroad (although that definitely helps!); they just need to know English so they can properly teach. Although I did spend the bulk of my time tutoring fighters at the gym and also volunteering at a local school, my internship evolved into something more complex. As a martial arts enthusiast, I knew a lot about Muay Thai and Thai culture from a Western perspective; however, I knew little to nothing about the Muay Thai world in Thailand, which is exceedingly more intricate than one would think, especially when coupled with the corruption of the surrounding community. As I was training and interacting with Boom, Frances, and the rest of the fighters at the gym, I was being exposed to a darker side of Thailand that was leaving me very disillusioned and frustrated with not only my original perception of the country, but also my purpose over here as a whole. Why was I here? Am I actually making a difference? Am I actually helping these kids learn English? These questions were buzzing in my head for weeks until I finally decided to redirect the goal of my internship to researching the positive impacts of Muay Thai on an impoverished community.

The three female fighters at the gym, Min, Namning, and Eap, after sparring.

With the help of Boom and Frances, I conducted a series of interviews with the kids at the gym (ranging from ages 9 to 14), as well as members of their families, to see how Wor. Watthana and Muay Thai in general has had a positive impact on their lives. These children and their families have nothing; they are in some of the lowest forms of poverty I have ever seen and, when you tack on the low-quality education and problems within the village itself, there is no escape. Muay Thai, however, lets these children break the cycle of poverty that they have unwillingly been sucked into. Fighting gives these kids the opportunity to succeed, dream, and provide a better life for themselves and their families. I would like to make it clear that I am not trying to paint Thailand in a negative light; that being said, there are problems and issues that need to be acknowledged. These are things that I have witnessed and was told in my interviews. This is the reality these people live in on a daily basis, and Wor. Watthana Muay Thai gym has provided a hope for a better life.


One of the first questions I asked the fighters and their families was to describe their living conditions, as well as the problems that they encounter on a daily basis. The fighters were pretty much in consensus with one major problem: gang fights. There are no extracurricular activities whatsoever for these kids in the village, so many older kids form gangs purely for something to do. In the words of Frances, boredom is deadly. They drink, do drugs, and start fights. It is important to note that these are not fights like we would see in schools in the U.S., where they just throw some punches and then break it up. These gangs stab, stomp, and try to hurt with the intention of killing. There have been numerous times where adolescents have been beaten to death or to the point of mental retardation. The worst part is that these fights are a common occurrence, According to Dee, an aunt to one of the top fighters at the gym, things like this happen on almost a daily basis and the local government makes absolutely no attempts to stop it. In her opinion, they do not care. They do not care if people die. They do not care about the villagers. They do not care about improving the quality of life for these people whatsoever. I can personally attest to this through my own observations also. There is a complete lack of basic infrastructure, with dirt roads or roads only half paved and full of potholes, which make for dangerous driving and many motorcycle accidents. There is also garbage everywhere; it is one of the most polluted environments I have ever seen.


Another enormous economic and social issue in Isaan is exodus of both parents to find work in Bangkok. Because Isaan is so poor and it is very difficult to find work that will provide a substantial wage, one or even both parents will migrate to Bangkok in order to pick up menial labor and send back wages to their families. In a recent article by the Bangkok Post (link listed at the end of the article), this leaves villages with almost no working adults. Children are living with grandparents and because there is an absence of either one or both parental figures, these children are suffering from malnourishment and development/behavior issues. The grandparents don’t have the energy to properly care for young children or provide them with proper food and care. Children have less success in school because they do not have a parent to teach them how to read or write and have problems developing social and emotional skills. This situation is very common for the fighters at the gym. Many of them do not have a parental figure in their life and, if they do have a parent in the village, most likely they are an alcoholic.


You also see situations where the child is completely abandoned by their parents. Bpaet, one of the top prospects at Wor. Watthana, is this child. He does not remember his mother and his father migrated for work when he was young, forcing Bpaet to move in with his aunt, Dee. He only visited maybe once or twice a year and sent back money now and then. Once his father remarried, he cut off all contact with Bpaet and stopped sending money. He only very recently tried to reconnect with Bpaet, but this is only because Bpaet is now twelve years old and considered “old enough to work.” This is a horrible story, but unfortunately a common one for children in this area of Thailand.


So what drew these kids to Muay Thai? For many of them, including Bpaet, it was just something to do after school since there are no extracurricular activities. When they are at the gym, they are away from all the negativity that surrounds them in the village: violence, drugs, and alcohol. Wor. Watthana is a safe space for them to exercise and to be part of a positive community. Another reason is self-defense. The girls, Min and Namning, said they wanted to learn how to protect themselves if they were attacked. To Min, there was also the appeal of participating in a cultural sport. As the national sport of Thailand, it was important to her to preserve the sport as the country evolves and transforms through outside influences. The final, and probably the most obvious reason for fighting, is money. According to Frances, Muay Thai fighters will earn a minimum of 300 baht (about 9-10 USD) for one fight (win or lose), which is equal to one days’ wages working menial labor in Bangkok. Ten minutes in a ring versus hours of exhausting and tedious work; I think the choice is clear. All of the kids and their families have benefited from the additional income they earn through the fights they take. They can provide food and clothes for themselves and their families. And with the more fights they have and the more skilled they become, they can earn considerably larger purses and opportunities to fight at the big shows, like in Bangkok.


My final question was about Wor. Watthana itself: how has the gym had a positive impact on the fighters and the community? While interviewing Boom, the owner/trainer of the gym, he said the main goals for the gym was to keep kids away from alcohol, drugs, and all the other negativity in the village. The gym itself was to be a safe space and community center to give the kids something to do after school or in the summer. It can be for people who love Muay Thai and want to fight, or people looking to stay fit and healthy; it is open to fighters and non-fighters alike. Most importantly, according to Boom, the gym and Muay Thai gives these kids a chance to dream. It presents them with an opportunity to be successful and escape poverty. Even if they struggle in school or do not have the connections for government jobs, learning Muay Thai at Wor. Watthana allows them to pursue future careers as Muay Thai trainers abroad. They can learn English through Boom and Frances, as well as from the other foreigners who visit the gym (like myself), which opens even more doors for employment. Overall, the gym and its owners, Boom and Frances, are here for the kids; they are not trying to profit off of them and their successes in the ring. They want these kids to succeed not only just in Muay Thai, but in life as well.


With these goals in mind and based on the other interviews I conducted, I would say Wor. Watthana has been very successful with the positive impact it has had on the kids and the community. Every single fighter told me the main benefit of the gym was that it kept them away from drugs, alcohol, and gang violence. Bpaet was very adamant to point out that this is the only place in the entire village that makes an attempt to do this; there are no government or school programs designed to keep kids out of these detrimental activities. Gael, the mother of two fighters at the gym, also noted that Wor. Watthana provides the community with a sense of pride and accomplishment that previously was not there. The villagers are proud knowing that there is a successful Muay Thai gym in the area where their children can learn a cultural sport and earn an income from it. Even though the local government and school do not support the gym or the kids that pursue it, the village has greatly benefitted from its presence.


As I reflect on the past five weeks of working at Wor. Watthana and teaching English to the fighters, my main takeaway is that this gym absolutely NEEDS to be here. The effect it has had on the kids and their families is immeasurable. Not only do they have a way of earning money, but the discipline, confidence, and pride they take in themselves and their training is evident. The kids do not have to worry about gangs, drugs, or alcohol; they have martial art that they can now dedicate themselves to and make a career in, if they choose to do so. Uncle Don, one of the key supporters and assistant trainers at the gym, made a significant comment at the end of his interview. “Muay Thai is a way for people with nothing to make money and improve their lives. You can train hard and go far in this sport. It is an escape.” The kids at Wor. Watthana are truly taking advantage of this. They started from the bottom with nothing; now they are here with everything to gain.

Group photo of the trainers and fighters at Wor Watthana

Wor. Watthana is a nonprofit Muay Thai gym in Nakhon Ratchasima province. It is important to note that they are 100% Western funded through individual and corporate sponsors because they take little to no money from their fighters. They need donations and funding to remain an active gym in this village. If you are interested in making a donation or know someone who would be interested in making a donation, please go to http://www.worwatthana.com/ for more information. I can promise you this is a worthy cause!

http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/general/907848/isan-youths-development-stunted-as-parents-go-to-bangkok

Surviving Popular Music in Thailand

Paul Bierman is 2015-16 Fulbright-AMCHAM Thailand ETA, currently teaching at Mae Chan Wittayakom, in Chiang Rai, Northern Thailand. Born in Iowa and raised in Alaska, Paul graduated from Swarthmore College in May 2015 with a B.A. in Sociology & Anthropology, and a minor in Interpretation Theory. Until he can read books in Thai, Paul contents himself with reading books about Thailand.

I have known some people in the U.S. that do not like music, but I haven’t met any such people in Thailand. Often when people talk about social life in Thailand they talk about the ubiquity and importance of food, but they neglect to mention that with enough food and enough people, music is sure to follow. While living in Thailand, I have seen music performed in many places, at my school, at bars, at weddings, at markets, on double decker buses. I have listened to it while with students in my classroom, while sitting alone at cafes, while on trips in cars. As with many “Thai” things I’ve experienced with the U.S. at the back of my mind, “Thai” taste in music sits in an uncanny valley, almost like its counterpart in the U.S., but just different enough that you don’t forget that you’re in Thailand.

I first arrived at Mae Chan Wittayakom School at the end of October, where I would live and teach for the next year. I did not realize at the time that I would soon participate in one of my truly memorable experiences, even before teaching. My first day, I was invited by student teachers in my department from nearby Mae Fah Luang University to join in a dance number for teachers’ Sports Day, two days away. I hesitated at first, but my eagerness to participate at my school won out. I practiced with them for the first time that afternoon, learning choreography from a YouTube video of university students performing to a Thai rap song. I practiced with the student teachers again the following afternoon, and again the morning of the performance. In between I practiced the dance by myself at home because I was determined not to make an ass out of myself.

Maybe like you at this point in my narrative, I had no idea what Sports Day was. Sports Day is a common Thai school event and competition, normally involving students rather than teachers. Like its name suggests, sports are played, from “chair ball” to volleyball, but the “sports” also include making somtam and putting on music and dance performances. Though some might argue that the sports are the key component of the day, in my opinion, the performances are a lot more interesting. On our teacher’s sports day, the sports were mostly finished by 11am and we were already moving onto the main event: an enormous lunch (seven courses total) and then the performance competition. Every school came with full musical routines: singers, dancers, music, costumes. (That said, the student teachers and I held our own. I even received a rose for my performance.)

Me in the middle of my solo

The teachers from my school performed a popular Thai classic. In front sang the teacher already introduced to me as “the best singer in the school” while the rest of the teachers danced and performed behind her.

As for the other schools, I don’t remember what all they performed. One school performed to a song with an ocean theme, and performed in swim shorts and Hawaiian shirts. Another performed their own cover of a viral YouTube video. I don’t remember which school actually won for best performance, which doesn’t really matter.

I was completely shown up by my students on their Sports Day a few weeks later.
These are pictures of only a couple of the performances from that day.

What mattered to me at the time, and still does, is how radically different this event was compared to school staff events in the U.S. For one, it was actually an opportunity for community to happen. Growing up, my dad worked for our local school district, and the only time that teachers or other school staff got to interact with each other in an official capacity was when they had to do some form of “professional development.” Something like Sports Day wouldn’t have happened because it didn’t have “a point” (as if encouraging community between schools isn’t enough of a point). I also can’t imagine teachers in the U.S. agreeing to prepare for elaborate performances like the ones that the Thai teachers performed. In the U.S. I think that the most one could hope for would be teachers singing at a karaoke event.

Speaking of karaoke, karaoke is often the go to entertainment for a party. Are you having a housewarming party? Ask one of the school’s technicians if you can borrow the school’s karaoke machine. (Yes, my school owns a karaoke machine, and they get their money’s worth out of it too.) Once, I went on a fieldtrip with students from my school to Chiang Mai, over four hours away. We left at four in the morning, and took enormous double decker buses, often used for long distance travel in Thailand. After a full day in Chiang Mai, guess what we did the entire drive back that evening? Karaoke, in the dark, with a laser show, because there isn’t a single double decker bus in all of Thailand not fully equipped for a non-stop karaoke dance party. I think I refused to sing on that trip, but following demands from students, I danced with them. By the time we got back, I was flying high, but utterly exhausted.

Not everyone was dancing all the time.

I have been asked to sing a number of songs during karaoke, including some that might seem odd: “Zombie” by the Cranberries and John Denver’s “Take Me Home, Country Roads.” From talking to other ETAs and other foreigners in Thailand, the consensus is that these two songs are karaoke staples. But why? I asked another American once about why he thought “Zombie” was such a popular karaoke song, and he said, “probably because it doesn’t take much English to sing well.” After trying to sing that song myself, I’m not convinced that he’s correct. What about “Take Me Home, Country Roads?” Could it be a legacy of the American military bases that spanned Thailand during the Vietnam War era? Or maybe the song simply appeals because it has the love for the countryside that can be found in many Thai songs, even today? I cannot say for sure, and I don’t know that I ever could.

Even if I don’t think there is an indisputable answer to the appeal of these songs, I have tried to make sense of them for my own sake. I have certainly been exposed to many musical tastes. One of the consequences of being an ETA is that I don’t really have a good way of transporting myself around. I don’t have a car, and I’m forbidden from using a motorcycle to get around out of safety concerns. I do have a bicycle, which I can use to go to the market, but beyond that, I am dependent upon the modes of transportation offered by others. Almost all of the Thai cars I have ridden in have a USB port for inserting a flash drive and playing a personal music mix. Riding in the fronts and backs of cars I’ve heard everything from U.S. country music, to Isaan love ballads, to disco music (e.g. Boney M’s “Rasputin”) to rock to pop (Thai, American, and otherwise). It seems that like me, the teachers and friends kind enough to take me places prefer songs with vocals to songs without: I don’t think I’ve heard any “classical” music (even with vocals) or any electronic dance music. I am willing to suggest that non-Thai music listened to in Thailand tends to have vocals rather than not: not exactly a revelation, but something anyway. I certainly never expected to hear “Rasputin” in Thailand, but when on a trip with one of my host teachers and I asked if she could play the song again, she told me that it’s one of her favorites.

For the most part, songs like “Rasputin” or “Zombie” remain unaltered aside from existing in their new cultural context. As a consequence of their new context, songs like these lose some meanings while gaining new ones. My 14 year old students in love with Justin Bieber may not understand the entendre behind Justin Bieber singing “oh baby, you should go and love yourself” in his song “Love Yourself,” but they listen to the song nonetheless. Yet, surprising or not that my students would like Justin Bieber, more obscure artists capture their attention just as much. One of these “obscure” artists is the Norwegian pop duo M2M. Though the duo released only two albums and dissolved in 2002, many of the girls in my classes were captured by their singles “Pretty Boy” and “The Day You Went Away” as if they had come out in the last six months. Atypical for pop music (at least in the U.S.), these two lovelorn ballads latched onto life in Thailand and became songs for a new generation. It might be inappropriate to suggest that all these songs I’ve discussed have something in common, but I think there is an aesthetic shared by them that we might think of as “Thai.”

When I first came to Thailand, I could not stand listening to “slow” music. Before I ever majored in anthropology and sociology, I studied computer science, and blasting pop music in my ears was how I got through long hours of programming. Out of all the things that I got from studying computer science, a compulsive need for dance-pop music while I work is one of the things that has stuck with me the most. (I even listened to some of my favorites while writing much of this narrative.) But, either out of a genuine attempt to embrace new things, or simply being surrounded by them, I can now honestly admit to seeing the appeal of a song like “Pretty Boy.”

Songs, as art and as cultural artefacts, gain and lose meanings as they move through time and space. This process becomes even more obvious once those songs have been changed to suit the needs of a new audience. Outside of music this typically happens through translation, taking something and reconstructing it in another language. With music, one of the ways “translation” happens is through live covers.

Cover bands are popular at Thai bars, and not in the way that they typically appear in the U.S., with one cover band covering the catalogue of one artist or a select few of them. Cover performers in Thailand perform wide catalogues and also accept requests. While most of the time these bands attempt to emulate the feel of the group they are currently performing, it is not as if they try to imitate the members of the groups themselves. There is also latitude in these performances: while singers can mostly perform in perfect English depending on the song, a song can be subtly altered, its tempo changed, or its rough edges buffed out.

Sometimes, though, songs do get radically changed to suit “Thai” tastes and appear as background music at cafes. Cafes are everywhere in Thailand, appearing nearly as often as 7/11s (which are almost everywhere). In some places, cafes even dominate. My own school has three cafes almost directly across the road while the nearest 7/11 sits 2 km / 1 mi away (surrounded by even more cafes). It is a very strange experience to realize that the gentle, breezy, background music of a cafe is actually someone singing Rihanna’s “S&M” to a different arrangement. For whatever reason, rooftop bars seem to call for this same form of music. Just a few weeks ago I sat at a rooftop bar in Bangkok while being constantly distracted by the background music, which consisted solely of a woman singing slowed down, gentle versions of Lady Gaga’s greatest hits.

Attaching “Thai” to culture is unavoidable when living in Thailand. Similarly unavoidable is the debates over what Thai culture is and isn’t, and who it does or doesn’t belong to. A key way that this debate is often framed is in terms of Thai-ness (kwaam bpen Thai ความเป็นไทย). One of the aspects of Thai-ness that seems to be agreed upon by conservative Thais as well as academics is that “Thais have long been, and still are, adroitly strategic and selective in their adoption and use of Western forms” (Michael Herzfeld on page 178 of “The Ambiguous Allure of the West,” an anthology published in 2010). It is not the case that “Western music” has drowned out an indigenous Thai music industry. The two exist side by side. Outside of their original contexts, Western, English, American, songs are listened to, sung during karaoke, imitated for bar-goers or transformed into light-as-air versions of themselves to be consumed alongside espresso and desserts.

Of course, this adeptness is not limited only to music, but to other pursuits as well, cultural and otherwise. King Rama VI, (King Vajiravudh) famously translated works of William Shakespeare into Thai. These few lines from Merchant of Venice (in their Thai form) have become so canonical, I am told that most Thais aren’t aware that they are translations. Maybe they offer another explanation of the Thai love of music, a love that has slowly worked on me.



The Merchant of Venice, Act 5, Scene 1, Page 5

The man that hath no music in himself,
Nor is moved with concord of sweet sounds,
Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils.
The motions of his spirit are dull as night,
And his affections dark as Erebus.
Let no such man be trusted. Mark the music.

A Walk in Every Country

Jacob Pinter grew up in Fayetteville, Ark., and graduated from the University of Arkansas with a B.A. in broadcast journalism. He is a 2015-16 Fulbright Thailand ETA at Watbotsuksa School in Phitsanulok province. Jacob was previously a production assistant at NPR’s Morning Edition. According to his scouting report, Jacob misses open jump shots and doesn’t move his feet on defense.




There were three highlights in my prep school basketball career:

· Scoring a personal high of seven points in a meaningless eighth-grade game.

· Shooting and almost (but not) making a game-winning shot.

· Flattening an opponent with a shoulder to his sternum that my coach loved, but the referees didn’t.



After egregious traveling violations, my coach liked to yell across the gym, “That’s a walk in evvvvvery country, Pinter!”

He was right – that’s why my playing days limped to a merciful end after junior high – but he didn’t know he was foreshadowing a triumphant return to the basketball court years later and halfway around the world.

Team Jumper: inept at basketball, undefeated at Photoshop.

There’s a section of the Fulbright application that asks about your plans for community engagement. They leave it dangling at the end, and by this point I’d already hit my space limit jabbering about my undying love for Pad Thai, and oh my gosh, wouldn’t it be just such a true thrill to represent the great U.S. of A. on the world stage?, and so on.


But it’s there, this community question, and as I wrote my essays it hammered home the important, sobering point that my ignorance of daily life in Thailand had depth, breadth, and angles that were simply never going to show themselves to me before the grant. So that straightforward question raised an even bigger one: what is Thai social life?


(The short answer, by the way, is “food.” The long answer is, “lots of food.”)


I knew for me sports would be somewhere in the mix. In an early application draft, I wrote a flowery BS paragraph about how excited I was to learn sepak takraw, a football/volleyball hybrid that’s darn near impossible for anybody that didn’t grow up playing it.


Takraw or no, a year after all this applying and existential worrying, I landed in Thailand with now a practical need to find social connections across a language and cultural divide that on good days was barely a divide at all – I imagine it like the flimsy, waist-high, nylon straps airports use to herd people through security – and on bad days veered more toward an orange-jumpsuit-and-no-hope-of-parole type of isolation.


Then I met Pi Pong. Pong is a shop teacher at my school and the kind of old-school sports nut that plays everything at a pretty high level. His love, though, is basketball.


Small-town social life and where ETAs fit into it can be tricky to navigate, but we’re often treated like a blend of guest of honor, foreign emissary, and helpless child. Our support network wants us to be happy, so it closely monitors our likes and dislikes, goes out of its way to make us comfortable, and always double-checks to make sure we’re having fun (sanuk).

Not basketball, but a few more fast friends. I met most of these people in the morning; we were best friends by lunch and the next day (pictured) were “all on the same team” with matching t-shirts.

On top of that, lots of Thai people have a fierce desire to be friends with farang (Westerners) for the same guest/emissary/child reasons. ETAs can endear themselves to total strangers by finding any type of common ground, especially showing interest in Thai culture. Eating somtam, speaking Thai nit noi, and smiling a lot are near-immediate keys to making friends.


My first invitation to play basketball with Phi Pong came a breath after our first helloes (er, sawasdee krabs). First we played just with students, then in pickup games with other adults in my town.


As soon as the first game, basketball didn’t open doors so much as kick them down and tear the hinges off. The first people I played with were M6 (high school senior) students at my school; after basketball, they seemed more willing to joke around when I saw them hanging out before school. Then, when I played with other people in town, I’d run into basketball friends at the market or at the park. They always remembered my name and said hello.


Most importantly, my relationship with Pi Pong deepened. He said hello to me every day and sat with me at morning assembly. He took me to lunch to eat guay tiao rua, Thai boat noodles, an old-school traditional Thai dish. Phi Pong showed me pictures of fish he caught at the dam and sunsets when he was camping. And when I gave him a postcard of a basketball game from my hometown university – the University of Arkansas Razorbacks – he asked me the next day about the “wild boar” mascot.


After a few months of sporadic pickup games, I joined “the basketball team.” I didn’t know what that meant or entailed; Phi Pong used one of my English teachers as a translator to ask me if I wanted to join the basketball team. I said okay.


The players on our team, Team Jumper, all live in my town, and I had played with several of them before. We were practicing, I found out later, for a tournament in the city. Every evening we scrimmaged and ran drills. One day we picked first-string and second-string squads, and the next day we busted out brand-new, official-looking purple jerseys.

The most important part of gameday is the photo shoot.

Team Jumper was ready.


Unfortunately the other teams were ready too, and we lost all four of our games by 20 points or more. We were there for sanuksies and didn’t get worked up about it.


So let’s ignore what happened during the games and look instead, this time, at the off-court highlight reel. A couple of different groups of young people in the stands asked to take selfies and followed me on Instagram. I hung out with another teacher at my school who moonlights at his parents’ restaurant down the street from our tournament. Once when I stood up to go to the bathroom the PA announcer stopped his play-by-play to announce, “The farang is going to the bathroom! Go straight, farang, go straight!”


And after our last game (another shellacking) I drank milkshakes and sang karaoke with the rest of Team Jumper: with my friends.


A year and a half ago, I tried awfully hard to convince Fulbright and myself I could engage socially in Thailand. But I forgot “social engagement” means, “just make friends, doofus.”


In the first six months of this ETA year, adjustments and surprises – the weather, the food, how to use the bathroom, and so many more – have jostled my sense of who I am and what I'm doing. The warmth of Thai strangers and new friends has consistently cushioned against the discomfort all those other swirling things can cause.


They don't care if you sing off-key karaoke, and they don't care if you're bad at basketball: Thai folks just want to be your friend.