Home stays in Nan: Hmong, Mien, And Lua

In the 4 hour+ air conditioned vans, watching American movies, it was easy to and from Chiang Mai to Nan that we were Thailand at all. We arrived , were greeted by Jacob (The coordinator of this second home stay) and told a little about what he is doing in a Hmong village with his wife and child (Work for his doctorate, by the way). We are given an inaccurate  map of the villages and how they relate to each other, and off we went to either a Hmong, Mein or Lua family. Most of us got put with Hmong families, I, along with Reid and Eva, were put in the Mien village which we were told the boundaries of were drawn up after the Mein settled. So the village is completely drawn around families houses in a squiggly line and declared a village.

My host father worked as a silver smith and my host mom worked at what people kept calling "the baby school" which I could only assume was a nursery. The first night the three of us and Pii Neung were driven up our street and then assigned houses as we passed them. Pii Neung came over to help settle us in, translate if need be and eat dinner with all of our families. Everyone in the Mein village seemed to speak Thai perfectly, if not a little bit of English as well. 

The next morning I woke up at seven a.m. to a knock on my door with my host mom on the other side saying "Maragodt, Gin Caow." I sprang up from my bed, afraid that I had over slept and kept the waiting threw on some clothing and looked at the clock on my cell phone and realized it was only seven. Turns out, I did keep them waiting. I could never be sure what time they ate breakfast, because as hard as I tried my body would wake up no earlier, and my host father always seemed to devour his food than have to run off to work. Anyway, Eva and I went walking around after breakfast, after stopping by Reids and being told he was still asleep. We wondered for a while and just as soon as we decided we should go back because we had nothing more to do we ran into Seashia and Laura riding on the back of motorbikes, pulling into their driveway. Their host brother took the four of us out for the day.

Our first stop was to ride up one of the mountains near by in which he stopped three different times so we could get a picture of a the best views. 

Next, he took us to the school where he worked and we climbed up a large hill/ small mountain to get to a spirit house. some how all of this took up a rough three hours, and then he looked at us and said "the next place we go is beautiful, scary, but also beautiful." The next place was a cave with some Buddha images in it. When we first took off our shoes and entered the cave we were greeted by 4 different Buddha images, but off to he left there was more cave, and a monk statue. 

It took a little more walking until the cave just became a cave that someone had set up lamps in.  At one point we had to turn around and just go back because the electricity had simply stopped. As for the "beautiful but scary" part, I would say, beautiful: yes; scary: no. Just a cave, some bats, I'm sure some snakes and spiders in there somewhere but none that I saw. WE did, however, get to one point where we had to cross a mildly significant hole in the ground via a bamboo bridge made by tying some bamboo together and then nailing boards into it. Seashia and Laura's host brother turned to us and said "mm.. okay. Only one person on the bridge" and while we all made it and I'm sure it was safe, made us all a little wary about crossing the gap. 

The next day Thai Studies took us to what used to be a Hmong refugee camp. The leader of one of the Hmong villages  pointed to where his house used to be, which is now a tree or too, and we were told that the UN had bought out some of the land to help the agriculture in the area that at one time had 20-30 thousand people living on it. And if you saw the actual area, that is far too many people to be living in that space. Next we went to a waterfall for lunch and some swimming. Mostly the latter. Even some of the Ajans jumped in. At night, we returned to our Mien village,and the man I believe to be Eva's host father showed us how he catches fish. I went home to my family who, after dinner, tried to teach me how to count in Mien. I'm guessing I did not do to well as my nawng saow and host Ma giggled together at my mispronunciation. After, my nawng saow brought out her Thai to English book for beginners  and we flipped through it, pointing to pictures and saying them in our respective languages correcting each other on pronunciation. 

The fourth day we once again had to ourselves. Eva and I started the day out the same. We walked to the end of the street, asked for Reid who was apparently sleeping. Decided we'd probably luck out and run into someone else again if we walked toward the rest of the villages, but we were wrong. So we sat by the lake, still no one passed by, so we walked back to Reids, who was awake, and just then Shannon, Ashley Kathy and Mercy strolled up. We went to the silver show in the Mien village, which happened to be Eva's host parents house. Then we went to Ashley's home stay where we went spent most of the day, partly because Marcy and I curled up on an outdoor bed of sorts under the building where Ashely slept, and decided then was a good a time as any to take a midday nap. We woke up, went to Mercy's homestay, where he host mother dressed us up in Hmong clothing for fun. Later Mercy's host brother drove us around with Jacob and Ajan Marcus, and took us to several Hmong shops. By the time we got home it was time for our community dinner.

I was told that Eva was going to get dressed up in traditional Mien clothing. I was not expecting for me to be dressed up as well until my nawng saow came in and told me to take a shower. I went down to Eva's house after my shower and had the villagers swarm Eva and I as we had heavy silver jewelry, headdress and costume placed on us. The below picture is one of my host ma and I.

We all ate dinner at tables, that somehow sorted themselves out by village and ethnic minority group. Most of us had been dressed up by our families in traditional garb, although the people of that group themselves wore their everyday clothing to the dinner. 

The next morning it was already time to leave. I walked to Eva's house and saw the clothing we had worn hanging out to dry. Reid Eva and I were given a ride to the center of all the villages, and goodbyes were said. On the way home we stopped by the wat wher Ajan Rebecca did some of her doctorate work, she continues to frequent the village, so some of the people at the Wat looked perplexed as to the amount of farang students that flooded out of some vans, until they saw our ajan. We hoped back in the vans, but not after buying some goods for sale in the back of the way, such as hand woven fabrics that the local people had made. 

We got back to our dorm just before dinner time, although I dont think that many of us ate dinner, and half of our roommates were gone. Summer vacation for them. Mine leaves tomorrow, but only for two weeks before she is back for the summer session, which is not something all students partake in. However, by the time she gets back, I should be leaving for our Songkran break. So we will see how that over laps. 

And that was our trip to Nan.

Back to being a tourist

Ginny and my friend Allie has come to visit for 2 weeks, until we leave for the hmong village on the 25 of March. She has been a good excuse to do all the touristy things that we did, or wanted to do in the beginning of the semester over again. Her only requirement of her trip here was to pet a baby elephant, which we did when we saw one walking out on the street during dinner. We went out pet it bought the over-priced sugar cane to feed him. Allie commented on how bristly his head was. 

For once I am finding it nice that PIH is half dorm half hotel. Allie rented out a room, much nicer than any of our dorms. So I've been sitting in her huge bed getting my work done. Although, this is something that I normally find a great inconvenience (like when a korean soccer team comes to stay and takes up every inch of free space outside of our dorm rooms) PIH is proving itself a great hotel. 

So far we have taken her into the old city, tons of markets, carrefour, to get Thai massages and are planning to take her to ride elephants and on the "flight of the gibbon" tour. The Flight of the gibbon is a huge tourist attraction in which people essentially zip line in the in the rainforest, see a waterfall, and other such things. It will be an interesting shift from showing Allie around to experiencing living in a hmong village.

ICU: Language Lunch Exchange

I went to my second language lunch exchange last week, and some how ended up sitting next to the same Thai students. There were a lot fewer of them and there were defiantly more farang students than Thai. Once again, I was next to a boy who was very into American pop-culture and knew about pop stars, actors and actresses I had never heard of. This is mostly what we talked about, and much like last time he found my lack of knowledge of popular culture amusing.  Thats okay by me, I learned the name of quite a few people via him. 

Went to the tailor

So, I figured I would get all of my pants shortened while I was here because its cheaper and none of my pants fit me because I have wee legs. After class, still in mu uniform, I bring some pants to a tailor that I found behind the seven eleven near campus. I try to use some Thai to tell them I have pants theyre too long, blah blah blah, and the woman looks at me with a very confused expression on her face,  the man who was fixing his motorbike in the shop laughs hysterically to himself for 3 seconds and looks at me and says "Tell me what you want and I'll tell her." So I'm putting jeans on and they tell me to roll them to the length  I want and she hands me a pin so I can pin them. They tell me I should come back in an hour. 

I come back in an hour and the woman isnt there but I see my pants finished and I see the man, still working on his motorbike. He looks at me and the only words I understood him say are Nacseuksaa (Student), and farang. They hand me the pants and then she realizes she only got halfway through one of them, so I take a seat while she is finishing up and the man is making small talk asking me questions. At one point he asks me where I am from, which, when asked in certain manners I have learned my answer should now automatically be, "I'm from America but my mom is from Lopburi" After I say this he looks at the woman sewing my pants and say "oh! loog kring" She looks at me, then back at the man and shakes her head no, at which point he gestures very specifically at my neck, and I realize he's looking at the necklace I was wearing which is my mom's Buddhist amulet from when she was a girl, and the woman still looked very doubtful. In fact, she told the man that I was not half Thai looked back at me, shook her head, and gave the man a look dripping with sarcasm. I cannot pass, and I am not sure how I  feel about that.

And now, all my pants fit me.

ICU: Language Lunch Exchange

The language lunch exchange is a chance to interact with some of the Payap students outside of the Thai studies program. We sit, we eat lunch at the canteen, its very casual and a lot of fun. There were mostly Thai students, however, there was one Turkish guy, but I didn't really get the change to talk to him.

The Thai students that I got a chance to talk to were very polite in conversation, and spoke English pretty well, or at least at a level that is infinitely better than my Thai right now. We talked a lot about music and when one person asked  me what my music taste was he laughed and said "Not at you. You're a girl. I was expecting you to say pop. and R&B" which makes a lot of sense after thinking about my roommate and all her friends ring tones. 

Speaking of which I asked Ploy if she was staying for the summer session classes and she is. But apparently there is a month in between semesters. So I will be roommate-less from late march until I get back from Songkran break. 

a pro and a con

The pollution is getting worse and worse everyday. I walk to class in the morning and I am walking in what looks like a grey fog but it's definitely not fog. I didn't used to get winded walking up the four flights of stairs it takes to get to all of our classes, but now I do, and its not because I don't go the the gym here. Everyone has been talking about how its harder just to breathe. Its gross.

On the plus side people are friendly enough to offer you rides to get you out of the heat and smog. Walking back from getting groceries at the Seven or Carrefour isn't so bad, because normally someone will stop and ask if you're heading to the dorms, regardless of how well you know them. I suppose riding around in cars is not a way to fix the smog situation, but I'll take what I can get.