On Wednesday the other UNC students and I were invited to an evening reception for the Kenan Institute Asia, a SE Asian development foundation that is supported by UNC. It turned out to be really nice, and we were able to meet a lot of people involved in KIA as well as the US ambassador to Thailand. The following day, a few of us went to a presentation for one of their partner organizations that had interested some of our Thai friends. It was awkward because everything the director (American businessman) said had to be translated into Thai. It seemed to us that he was frustrated with not being able to understand the Thai students, who spoke either in Thai or broken English, and didn't regard the fact that English was their second or third language. This made me think about the effect of language barriers on international businesses. With the majority of the world business environment controlled by English speakers, are intelligent people (and their ideas) being left out or dismissed because their English is imperfect?
On Friday, we went on a UNC-sponsored bike tour of Salaya (the town where our school is). It began at 6am, so naturally we complained nonstop for the entire week prior, but it turned out to be very fun. We biked 56km total and stopped at a nice market and a park. After the bike tour, we were too tired to do much, but we instead made plans for a well-earned "spa day" the next day. A bunch of girls from the house and I went out to Bangkok to a cute little spa and had massages and pedicures (yes, I had a pedicure. And my feet were gross because in Buddhist/Thai culture you take off your shoes when entering homes or holy places, causing your feet and shoes to be perpetually dirty. (In Buddhism, the head is the holiest part of the body, and the feet are the lowest.)) Anyway, we had a lovely time chatting and sitting around and sipping coffee and tea. The total price came to 320 baht, or about $10.
Obviously, after such a highly concentrated day of girly activity, I needed to balance my chi and return to my roots. I woke up at 6:00am on Monday morning to watch the NFC championship game (skipped out on the 3am Patriots game, though it was a tough decision). It was well worth it. Due to a convenient, well-timed motorcycle taxi delay, I managed to see the end of the game before going to class.
School is still going well. Classes here are much less organized, and it is frustrating at times because the material is really interesting but the classes don't seem to have depth or plans. I went to volleyball practice yesterday and am thinking about playing on the team here, but it would take up a lot of time that I could be spending exploring/traveling. This weekend, we are headed to Chaing Mai in northern Thailand. We'll take the overnight bus tomorrow night and probably return Sunday night or Monday morning.
I believe that is all. Here's a picture of a few of us (including all four UNC girls) at the school coffee shop on the first day of school. (Our pins are on the wrong side because the people at the international relations office told us wrong. For shame.)
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