Bizarre Thailand!

hello everyone! we know it has been a while but we're back now

We're settling in to life and work in Bangkok, the temperature has dropped (not that it gets under 20 degrees! it's just a bit chilly at 7am, and we haven't sweated in about a week!) and our first Christmas away from our families is fast approaching. This also means that school has been a bit interrupted by Christmas rehearsals, concerts and other such fun! Oh, and my school had sports day today (very little sport, a LOT of parading/dance choreographs done mainly by girls in teeeny weeeny skirts and very provocative clothes, even the ickle kindergarten kids.. WEIRD!!). Matt was also a little freaked out by some of the kids' costumes at his school's xmas show. But that's not the bizarrest thing i've got to tell you. My school was divided into 4 teams (red, yellow, blue, green) for sports day and each team had decorated their section of the bleachers in coloured banners etc. And team red choose (in what has to be the biggest display of ignorance i have EVER encountered) to decorate their section with the theme..wait for it..NAZISM!!
They had a big swastika (albeit the buddhist version, not the nazi one), cut outs of skull-and-cross-bones and machine guns, a machine gun emplacement made of tires and last but not least, a gold sign reading NAZI. Oh, and as part of the red teams' parade they had kids marching with fake guns and nazi banners. It's hard to explain how very creepy and disconcerting it is to see kids looking like hitler youths. (Thankfully, there were none of the kids from our part of the school or I might have freaked out at them). All the foreign staff were left pretty much speechless. But criticising is not part of Thai culture at all so there wasn't much we could do. Also I should explain, they weren't just being offensive, they're just ignorant. For them, nazism is something that happened far away, they are not taught about it (or so it would seem) and they might as well have chosen the roman army in their eyes. But, in any case, some teacher must have authorised it (if not come up with it) and surely the teachers should know better!! It was all very disturbing anyway.
On a lighter note, the xmas concert at my school was ace: they sang carols and the older kids did some "cool" songs - including linkin park, natalia imbruglia and some rap - they rocked!!

Anyway, we hope we'll be getting emails from everyone wishing us a merry Christmas as we're a wee bit homesick. But we've ordered our turkey and our tiny fake christmas tree is getting more and more presents under it.. and i bought the world's worst Christmas cd today!

Matt says: the Christmas mass at my private catholic girls school wasn't quite as outrageous as melissa's sports day.. apart from the kindergarten kids gyrating in slinky red santa outfits with make-up and hairspray to boot! Some of the singing was really good, some really good solos although the remaining 2 hours of the service went over my head as they were in Thai! I'm almost settled into my new job although I havent done much proper teaching with all the holidays, exams and festivities. The staff are really nice but the girls stuff their faces with all sorts of unhealthy sweets, drinks, icecream and snacks at every oppurtunity. And apart from being ridiculously hyperactive and naughty, the teachers don't seem to understand why the kids are getting "stouter." Also half of the students have gold plated teeth! But they are still so cute especially when they babble away to me in Thai oblivious to the fact I don't understand so just smile and nod

I feel like his secretary now! Take care!

xxx meli and matt

Note (added later): Just for the record, I did bring up my concerns about the Nazi-themed team with my boss (not a Thai). He effectivly said that there was nothing he could do about it.