I’ve been in Thailand just about a week. I’ve already had a significant bout of diarrhea, witnessed a red-shirt bridge takeover, and participated in the epic water fighting clay face-smearing thing that has become Thai new year. None of which were really choices I guess. I mean I could have skipped ordering that mango salad, which all my friends tell me was the culprit. But evidence of red-shirts is everywhere—I’ve been told they’re a regular part of traffic reports now. And even if you avoid the Songkran drunken battle sites of Khaosan or Silom, from a tiny windy soi to a bus stop on the main road, it’s unavoidable, you will get soaked. I mean last night I saw a 7/11 employee dump a 3-gallon-looking bucket of water onto a co-worker in the middle of the store.
My name is Ian. I studied in Thailand about 3-4 years ago, doing just about 5 months in Bangkok at Thammasat University along with a 2 month home-stay in the Northeastern countryside interviewing rice farmers about debt and their switch to organic farming. Now I am back for at least a year or maybe longer, depending on how it goes. I’ll likely be doing the very unoriginal activity of teaching English. I’ll also hopefully become a Mormon level Thai speaker, learn some more Thai boxing, and how to use my fancy digital SLR camera. Along the way, I hope to share some good stories and decent pictures. I hope to avoid grand conclusions and activity prescriptions. And most of all, to borrow the words of a friend, I don’t want to ever ever slip into a: “This is me being awesome in Thailand! Look at how awesome I am!” tone. Did the first paragraph sound that way? I was just trying to make stuff sound exciting.
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