An afterlife of misery and suffering. A fiery purgatory ruled by a wicked devil. A deep and gloomy abyss at the bottom of Hades’s domain. Nine concentric circles of torture and punishment. A room full of screaming children. A workout that just won’t end quick enough. A forced dinner with your inlaws. Ninety minutes of standstill traffic. Maybe you’ve heard of these versions and maybe you’ve experienced others. However, one thing we can agree on is that everyone has their own take on hell.

Obligatory Teaching Update

Moving Beyond Intros

A couple of my superstar students

So that whole lead in was just to tell me you had a bad week, all of your kids are unruly, but somehow you made it through? Actually, no. I wouldn’t say any of that at all except the part that I made it through. I taught 21 lessons that included more intros as well as lectures on social media, family, slang, and even some topical ones on meeting foreigners. Quite a lot to prepare for but variety is the spice of life as they say. And while a few classes tried their best to test me, most were friendly and well-behaved. Teaching the vocab and concepts was relatively straightforward although those social media classes were a bit tougher because they included higher level verbs such as “updating,” “sharing,” and “blocking” among others. However, as I said before, I made it through to the weekend without much trouble.

An Extra Pair of Eyes

Post Evaluation

Relative to the behavior of children in the American school system I grew up in, the behavior of Thai children can be surprising and feel somewhat inappropriate at times. Negative reinforcement by foreign teachers is highly frowned upon in Thai schools and can be the easiest route to lose a class’s interest and even their attendance. If a student screams an expletive, no punishment. If they make a sexual comment, no punishment. If they blatantly use a phone in class, no punishment. If they show up halfway through a class or not at all for a few weeks…you get the point. And you might argue that, instead, I can choose to reflect this in their grades. However, by rule, students are not allowed to fail classes so even by giving the bare minimum–which can literally be nothing at all–I have to give them the lowest passing grade at the end of the semester. So for a foreign teacher like me, this requires a lot of patience–which luckily I have–with the subpar behavioral conditions. What it also means is when we get randomly evaluated each month, the class that’s chosen is a complete lottery draw in terms of class behavior. While I was shocked to receive this evaluation during my second week, I was fortunate that a very well-behaved class was chosen and that I successfully kept them engaged for the entire class. The results: a 96/100 score from my evaluating teacher and 5/5 from the randomly selected students that evaluated me after class. Maybe I should’ve played the lottery that day…

Random Bang Saen Adventures

Double Dating the Foreign Teachers

A girl is interested in a guy. The guy doesn’t know. The girl goes out of her way to get the guy’s attention. The guy is friendly back but doesn’t make a move. The girl decides to go ahead and be bold and ask the guy out. No, I didn’t just give you the setup to every chick flick out there. What that was, however, was how Steven and my Monday morning played out. One of the Thai teachers (nicknamed Bow) had been making her way toward talking to Steven and I–well mostly Steven–during several of the previous morning assemblies. So on Monday she asked Steven out to dinner and then said I should come too and that she was bringing her girl-friend, Pan. We went ahead and agreed because why not? However, we really had no idea what we were enlisting for because a lot was lost in translation. What followed on Thursday evening was a lot of debate about what we should wear, discussion on how we would handle things if it got awkward, agreement that we would not pay, and so on. All of that to figure out that Pan was Bow’s significant other and they both were very interested in meeting foreigners and improving their English. A big lol on our end but overall it was a great experience in which we made two awesome Thai friends.

Dinner with Bow and Pan

Getting a haircut

I’m a diva. Well not usually, but I know I can be about very specific things. And one of the things I’ve always been a diva about is my hair, particularly getting it cut. You name the hairstyle, I’ve tried it. Spikes: check. Mohawk: check. Wolverine-style: check. Pompadour, undercut, slick back, buzz cut, crew cut, high fade, low fade: checks all around. And while the style changes from time to time, my standards for precision and accuracy have remained the same. So finding a new barber always adds a bit of stress between my ears. Add in an element of potential language barrier and it would seem like an impossible task. I mean, “square in the back, high fade starting from a zero, and just an inch or so off the top” isn’t exactly one of the first phrases you learn in another language. But, the time inevitably came and again a lot of stress over nothing. My barber was top notch, incredibly precise, and had a decent command of English. I sat in his chair for over 75 minutes and then endured a full photoshoot for his website and social media accounts. And all of it for the low cost of 160 baht (~$4.86).

Monkey Mountain

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After being deterred by rain for a couple of weeks, my friends and I decided to trek out to a hill near Bang Saen where wild rhesus monkeys roam freely. Following multiple modes of transportation, we stood at the base of Khao Sam Muk and there were monkeys everywhere. Dozens stood atop trees, power lines, cars, benches, fences, restaurants, and even a temple across the street. And while the idea seemed fun and compelling beforehand, it turns out that the monkeys are quite aggressive and the novelty wore off rather quickly. So as promptly as we had arrived, we B-lined straight out of the area.

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Hell Garden

Okay, so I see this post coming to an end but what the hell was that opening all about? Well don’t you worry, I didn’t forget about that weird intro. Although, what I do somewhat wish I could forget about is the depiction of hell that we stumbled upon. Tucked off to the side of a quiet neighborhood, Wang Saen Suk Hell Garden is a Buddhist temple that depicts Naraka aka Buddhist Hell. It’s actually one of multiple such gardens in Thailand, which spare no detail in the gruesome punishments that will be faced for a given sin. Some of the specific sins I saw listed in the garden were arson, selling addictive drugs, and stealing another man’s cooked rice. Some made sense, while others were just oddly specific. In addition to the plaques listing the sins and their corresponding consequences, there were figures depicting the punishments as well as donation boxes to encourage penance. It was truly bizarre but I’ll let you go ahead and confirm via the pictures.

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The Wrap Up

Thanks for reading this post and as always, I encourage you to comment below and/or share this with anyone you think might enjoy it! I’ll end by asking you: What’s the weirdest thing you’ve ever stumbled upon?